Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Davis, and Oliver Lake. Regarding her first encounter with Taylor, she recalled: "I remember the day I first met Cecil Taylor... He was playing pool, and there was a piano behind the pool room. So I sat at the piano and gave him an impromptu concert, hoping he'd listen. When I was finished he kissed my hand, and said, 'This lady can play!' I'm still flattered to hear my name mentioned in the same breath." (During this time, people frequently referred to her as "the female Cecil Taylor" due to her fiery approach to the piano and her tendency to play "lots of notes, all of the time. Continuously, without much of a break.") Regarding her time at the Creative Music Studio, she stated: "It was and is a unique place in the world for the kind of music that we do... If it had taken place in New York City I don't think the feeling would have been the same. Here you were living and eating and hanging out with the guiding artists in this country motel setting. People would be up all night making bonfires and playing outside on the lawn with musicians from all over the world. It was a very important human experience and I met many of the people I ended up playing with." Upon completion of the session, Crispell quickly moved to Woodstock and has resided there ever since. While at the Creative Music Studio, Crispell also met Anthony Braxton, who invited her to sit in with his group. She recalls: "At our first gig Anthony placed a beer in my hand and said, 'Relax, don't play so many notes.' I was playing like a thousand notes a minute, and he was the first person to make me think of space and breath and phrasing, as opposed to a constant barrage." She was soon invited to join Braxton's Creative Music Orchestra and his quartet, of which she was a member from 1983 to 1995, and which also featured bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Gerry Hemingway. During this time, she made roughly a dozen recordings with Braxton, and also began releasing recordings under her own name. Regarding her tenure with the group, she stated: "[I]t was like a family. Playing with Anthony really taught me a lot about space, the use of space and silence