Bracingly adventurous music from saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and his Note Factory band recorded live at the Burghausen Jazz Festival, at the climax of a 2007 tour, and released shortly after Mitchell's 70th birthday. Challenging notions of festival jazz, the group offers an uncompromising exploration of levels and degrees of sound, with intensity, focus, and thrilling interplay.

Roscoe Mitchell, born in Chicago in 1940, is one of the great innovators in creative music of the post-Coltrane, post-Ayler era. He founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago (originally the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble), whose ECM legacy includes the widely applauded albums 'Nice Guys', 'Full Force', 'Urban Bushmen' and 'Tribute To Lester. More recently Mitchell has co-led the Transatlantic Art Ensemble with fellow saxophonist Evan Parker.

'Far Side' is the second ECM disc from Mitchell's Note Factory ensemble. Roscoe described the first, 1999's 'Nine to Get Ready' as "the coming together of a dream I had many years ago of putting together an ensemble of improvising musicians with an orchestral range." The dream has continued as Mitchell has continued to blur the demarcation between composition and improvisation.

The current Note Factory includes two very exceptional piano players in Craig Taborn and Vijay Iyer. Taborn can currently be heard on Michael Formanek's hot ECM album 'The Rub & Spare Change' while multi-award winner Iyer appears on ECM for the first time.

Personnel: Roscoe Mitchell (saxophones, flutes), Corey Wilkes (trumpet, flugelhorn), Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer (pianos), Jaribu Shahid (double-bass), Harrison Bankhead (double-bass, cello), Tani Tabbal, Vincent Davis (drums)