International Women's Day

 By Stef Gijssels

In 2017, Joëlle Léandre reacted to a French jazz award by complaining that none of the winners were women. Her response on our blog is still the most read article (73,000 times), and the one with the most comments (65). On our blog, we do not have a clear policy on diversity or inclusion. We just go with the quality of the music performed, and by the personal choices of our reviewers. So far, this has led to a very balanced result, possibly because of the great diversity of artists in the free jazz/free improv space, which is almost by definition based on inclusion, on integrating different voices and perspectives, on challenging the existing traditions and breaking through boundaries, sonic ones first, but societal ones by implication. 

It is then no surprise that this is reflected in our blog posts and our own 'awards', if you can call our "Album Of The Year" that.  It has been won by women : Anna Högberg in 2025, Økse in 2024 with Savannah Harris and Mette Rasmussen in the band. And we've had female artists every year in our top-3 lists, recently with amongst others Sylvie Courvoisier and Myra Melford. 

Today is International Women’s Day, and we’d like to celebrate the occasion as well. To narrow things down, we’ve selected a few trios featuring women saxophonists we’re excited to highlight. The takeaway is simple: there is an incredible amount of high-quality, innovative music being created by female artists. Many other saxophonists (and other musicians) could be added to our overview, such as Ingrid Laubrock, Anna Webber, Caroline Kraabel, Matana Roberts, Alexandra Grimal, Amalie Dahl, Ada Rave, Rachel Musson, Mia Dyberg, Sakina Abdou, Yoko Miura, ... We cannot review all of them, but we can only encourage them to keep adding innovation and musical beauty to our world. 

Joëlle Léandre, Lotte Anker, Kresten Osgood Trio - Worlds (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2024) 

Let's start by this excellent trio album of Joëlle Léandre on bass and voice, Lotte Anker on saxophones, and Kresten Osgood on drums. The album presents three long improvisations, called "World One", "World Two", and "World Three". As you can expect from such a band, they bring a grand mixture of sensitive intensity, raw inventiveness and seamless interaction. Especially the second track is exceptional, with Léandre's dark arco and Anker's fragile high-pitched alto tones giving a wonderful contrast of gravitas and sadness, of weight and light, always subtly accompanied by a very versatile Osgood. The music is gripping, astonishing and moving. 

Halfway through the second piece, Anker claims a brief solo space. The sensitivity of her playing is remarkable, as it always is—a genuine delight. Léandre answers with her familiar dramatic outbursts of shouting, singing, and vocalising: raw, almost brutal. Osgood intensifies the friction, sharpening the edges of the sound.

Soft silk brushes against hard stone. The dynamics are fierce—collisions bloom into harmonies, rhythms disappear and return in new forms, roaring passages thin into whistles while quiet tremors swell into pounding blows. The music feels inspired: completely open-ended, yet the space before them brims with shared invention.

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Camila Nebbia, Andrew Lisle & Caius Williams - Keen [Most Senses] (Otoroku, 2025)

Originally, this trio was expected to be with Kit Downes on piano, yet he could not attend, so bassist Caius Williams stepped in for this excellent sax trio, with Camilla Nebbia on saxes and Andrew Lisle on drums. 

Nebbia is ferocious, solid, inventive, leading, with a presence that is very strong. Their playing is very dense, leaving little room for silence or empty space, with a high intensity and pulse. Things move forward with a rare sense of urgency, as if there is a lot to say with too little time to do it. This is a fantastic piece of raw musical energy. 

It's not a surprise that the Argentinian tenorist is very prolific and much in demand for collaborations. "Exhaust" (Relative Pitch, 2025), her collaboration with Kit Downes and Andrew Lisle was a true winner, and long-listed for our album of the year last year. There was her album "Presencia" (Ears&Eyes, 2025) with James Banner and Max Andrzejewski, "A Reflection Distorts Over Water" (Relative Pitch, 2025) with Marilyn Crispell and Lesley Mok, "Live at Blow Out" (Sound Holes Live Editions, 2025) with Michael Formanek and Vinnie Sperrazza, and "Hypnomaniac" with Gonçalo Almeida and Sylvain Darrifourq. 

I also happily refer readers to Paul Acquaro's review of the Deutscher Jazz Preis, which covers another four albums by nominee Nebbia from 2024. She did not win the award for sax, yet it went to Ingrid Laubrock, a choice that we also applaud. And so no reason for Joëlle Léandre to write an open letter with regard to the German awards. 

Gabbro - Groundspeed (Dropa Disc, 2026)

"Groundspeed" is the fourth album by Belgian band Gabbro, after "Gabbro" (2017),  "Granular" (2019), "The Moon Appears When The Water Is Still" (2023), with Hanne De Backer on baritone and soprano sax, and bass clarinet, Casper Van De Velde on drums and Raphael Vanoli on electric guitar. As with their previous albums, they are inspired by travelling, now not on foot, but by car, driving from Brussels to Italy, visiting fictitious villages along the way, collating sound samples from each place and integrating them into an impression of the real experience. It seems a convoluted process for improvised music, yet the end result has a fascinating combination of freedom and design. 

The music is gentle, slow-paced, welcoming and inviting the listeners in into their own sonic universe. De Backer's warm tone is reminiscent at times of cool jazz saxophonists, yet she adds a lyricism and freshness of the open air and space around her. With "Verna", the sixth track, the pace picks up with a more uptempo and more voluminous approach, with a key role for Van De Velde's drumming. This is maintained in "Passa di Fuoco" on which the bass clarinet sings over a foundation of rapid-fire sampled drumming. The album ends again with the deep and warm tones of the sax over an uncanny background of shrill seesaw sounds. 

Unusual music by a band with character and a very coherent musical vision. 

Listen and download from  Bandcamp.

Maria Valencia, Matt Moran, Brandon Lopez - Tarabita Espiral (Relative Pitch, 2025) 

We already met Colombian sax player Maria Valencia with Mats Gustafsson's "The Thing" and with her own album "Compendio de Alfonías Abisales" (2023). Now we find her in a trio with Brandon Lopez on bass and Matt Moran on vibes. The music was recorded live at the IBeam in Brooklyn in May 2024. 

This fully improvised set feels open-ended, fresh, and lightly textured. Valencia is just as eloquent in the slower passages as in the quicker bursts of energetic interplay, moving effortlessly between timbral exploration and more boppish lines. Moran’s unusual vibraphone sounds—often more chime-like than percussive—combined with Lopez’s hypnotic bowing and subtle plucking, create a unique canvas for Valencia’s inventive phrasing. Some passages are really surprising because of their novelty 'compositional' vision, resulting in a very unique overall sound. 

Valencia is a musician to follow. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

Silke Eberhard, Jan Roder, Kay Lübke - Being-A-Ning (Intakt, 2025)

German altoist Silke Eberhard is easier categorised as modern contemporary jazz, yet her playing and her music are so great that we want to share this too. On this album, she is in a trio with Jan Roder on bass, and Kay Lübke on drums. 

Her compositions are complex and rhythmically driven, giving the trio plenty of room to display their virtuosity. Even the most demanding passages are handled with an easy, natural flair, as if this music were second nature to them. The result is a highly entertaining album, full of jaw-dropping moments of technical brilliance, playful structural shifts that raise a smile, and improvised sections executed with remarkable control.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

To be honest, I had a few more albums on my list here, but I will keep them for later. It's getting late here. The paradox of this blog post is that it demonstrates that female artists in free jazz and free improv do not need special promotional attention, but then we do it anyway. Yet in society there's still a long way to go. 

Keep listening! Keep playing!