[1] The primary inspirations on the album include the blues, African drumming and the music of Lennie Tristano.

The pieces were commissioned by the New York arts organisation Roulette as part of their tenth birthday celebrations.

Crispell, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Gerry Hemingway played together many times in the Anthony Braxton quartet, but this was their debut performance as a trio.

[2] The title of the composition "What of it I Refuse Awakes the Wide-Eyed Stone" is from a line in the poem "The Sleeping Rocks" by Nathaniel Mackey, published in the 1985 collection Eroding Witness.

In place of free or structured improvisation, The Kitchen Concert documents a first, rather tentative, confrontation with written forms of her own.