Introducing Experimental Sax Player and Sound Artist Tom Solovietzik

By Eyal Hareuveni

Tom Soloveitzik is an Israeli soprano and tenor sax player and sound artist based in Paris, who has spent the recent years, his most fertile era, in Tokyo. He works and researches the materiality and vulnerability of sound - in its most delicate aspects of resonance and decay -and in an austere manner corresponding with the experimental, minimalist Wandelweiser scene, as well as the practice of listening, often as a philosophical kōan dealing with the inherent imperfection of our lives.

Hannes Lingens / Tom Soloveitzik / Toshimaru Nakamura / Atsuko Hatano / Naoto Yamagishi - Play (Hitorri, 2025)

 

 PLAY is a game-piece by German, Berlin-based composer-percussionist Hannes Lingens (of Die Hochstapler quartet) with a set of 100 cards with instructions for ensembles of any size and instrumentation. The individual instructions vary from precise to vague, sometimes requiring a high degree of interpretation, but eventually seek to have as many different sounds as there are people in the room. The first version of this work was recorded in Jerusalem (and titled as “Jerusalem”) with a sextet, with Lingens and five Israeli musicians, including Soloveitzik, in 2022 (Play, Hitorri, 2023).

Soloveitzik, who wrote the liner notes to the original release and knew that this game-piece resembles practices used in Noh theatre, produced a Tokyo version of this work on the occasion of the release of the first Play at the space of Ftarri record store and label in Tokyo in Tokyo in November 2023, with him playing the soprano sax, no-input mixing board pioneer Toshimaru Nakamura, Atsuko Hatano on five-string viola, and percussionist Naoto Yamagishi. The outcome is much longer (80 minutes) than the original “Jerusalem” version, but it is charged with similar, unpredictable, enigmatic, and poetic tension. It beautifully realizes Lingens’ vision by not making things too tight or loose, yet in control and with generous silences, and thus offering a stimulating space for projection where music lies between people and ideas.

Takashi Masubuchi / Wakana Ikeda / Tom Soloveitzik / Yoko Ikeda - Microcanonical Ensemble (Rombed Visions, 2025)

The Microcanonical Ensemble is Soloveitzik on tenor and soprano saxes, Takashi Masubuchi on acoustic guitar, Wakana Ikeda on flute and harmonica, and Yoko Ikeda on violin and viola da gamba, all associated with the Ftarri label and its faithful circle of experimental musicians. This acoustic ensemble echoes the minimalist music of Morton Feldman, Jürg Frey, and the composers of the Wandelweiser scene. The three extended pieces weave subtle paradoxes, balancing stasis and movement, delicate interplay between sound and silence, resonance and decay, improvisation and composition. The thoughtful yet austere sonic images, often employing the simplicity of one note, suggest slowly changing landscapes that transform like the seasons, and melt into a seductive and intimate, rippling sound. These reductionist pieces were partially captured at the Ftarri shop and venue, and are performed with patience, grace, and restraint, stressing the essence of human imperfection.

Tom Soloveitzik & Microcanonical Ensemble - two waves, drawn on paper (Sawyer Spaces, 2025)

two waves, drawn on paper is Soloveitzik’s composition for the Microcanonical Ensemble (and dedicated to it), and recorded at the banks of the Tama river (which divides the greater Tokyo area into Tokyo and Kanagawa prefecture), in November 2023. Soloveitzik employs the intimate, delicate, and minimalist dynamics of the Ensemble to reflect and mirror his own feelings and thoughts as a visitor - and a stranger - but being part of a place, still, completely unimportant to the surrounding instances. Or, being present in the field - literally - of infinite occurrences, musical and otherwise, and by deep listening, absorbing the place in the most physical sense. Soloveitzik wanted him and the Ensemble to take part in this endless, transient cycle around the Tama River, exploring unseen and unpredictable relations, blending in, and “being played by it”. The album was released by American composer Kory Reeder’s label, Sawyer Spaces, focusing on art and place: the intersections of experimental music, field recordings, and soundscape.

Sun Yizhou / Tom Soloveitzik - Light Industry International Co. (Ftarri, 2025) + Yinshan Pagoda Forest 银山塔林 (Presses Précaires, 2025)

 

Two sound art adventures of Soloveitzik and Chinese, Beijing-based young conceptual and sound artist Sun Yizhou, both were recorded on the same day, in March 2024.

Soloveitzik toured Beijing and Shanghai in late March and early April 2024 and had a recording session with Sun Yizhou (credited with noise floor and audio cables). Light Industry International Co. features three pieces - a brief one and two extended ones from the studio session. Soloveitzik’s ethereal, whispering, and meditative tenor sax resonates and is extended by Sun Yizhou’s subtle, noisy electronics, and both sounds are punctuated by numerous silences of changing lengths, but sound perfectly attuned to each other. This austere architecture of reductionist sounds is intensified by the cover artwork, an original image from the iconic Radford's Architectural Drawing (1912).

 The Yinshan Pagoda Forest (银山塔林) is a sacred Buddhist site near Beijing from the Liao (916-1125) and Jin (1115-1234) dynasties, and was one of the "Eight Views of Beijing" - the picturesque and historically significant sites in and around Beijing - during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. Soloveitzik recorded three sparse, ethereal solo sax solos in this historical site, and was answered on the other four pieces by Sun Yizhou, credited with “jumping, clapping, shaking, and atmospheric radio receiver”. Sun Yizhou offers a completely different perspective of the historical site from the meditative and reserved one of Soloveitzik, one that is clearly distant and detached, punctuated by sudden percussive and mechanical noises.

Tom Soloveitzik - 麻布 diaries (Aloe, 2024)

麻布 diaries - Azabo diaries, titled after the Azabo neighborhood in central Tokyo where Soloveitzik has lived. 麻布 also means linen in Chinese, as Sun Yizhou, who released the album by his label, Aloe, told Soloveitzik. This album documents Soloveitzik’s daily solo practice between November 2022 and December 2023. The music is quiet and subdued, focused and with great restraint, but intimate, intriguing, and nuanced. Soloveitzik is blending in, absorbing, and responding to the small space vibrations. The saxophone becomes an abstract sound generator that shifts air in transparent densities and different material states. The last piece, “[蔵王温泉] thousand eyes”, is a field recording from Zao onsen, a popular ski resort north of Fukushima, where Soloveitzik placed the recording machine inside the sax bell, making the instrument a witness to a completely surprising social phenomenon, including the background playing Paul Desomnd’s ballad, “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”..

Tom Solovietzik - Views from the Seven Ionian Islands (Suppedaneum, 2025)

This album borrows its title from Edward Lear’s 1863 visual travelogue, and began with the Soloveitzik family's visit a decade ago to the Greek island of Kythira. The images, sounds, and memories from this island resurfaced during Soloveitzik’s trip to Japan, so he concluded that these Views, which kept moving between the present and the past, are embedded in his life. This realization led Soloveitzik to think that the “best recording is the memory of listening, of the image(s), of contact, and of change”. He quotes Marcel Duchamp’s epigraph that captures the elusive essence of this work: “One can look at seeing: / one can’t hear hearing”.

 Views from the Seven Ionian Islands focuses on our ever-evolving perception of the past and present, and what are the nuances that distinguish past from present, near from far, and memory from perception, or perhaps, most importantly, the person one once was from the person one has become, especially in a world increasingly characterized by a profound sense of dislocation - geographic, temporal, moral, aesthetic, and political. This philosophical, meditative work consists of two suites. The first, a six-movement contemplative one with a nine-musician ensemble recorded in Jaffa in August 2023, and the second is a series of fifteen field recordings made in 2015 in Kythira, interwoven with brief, abstract interludes. It is accompanied by a book with Soloveitzik’s impressions of the island, a conversation with painter Masha Zusman, who relocated to the island, and an essay on the work by the writer and composer Derek Baron.

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John Zorn - Suite for Piano (Tzadik, 2022), Ballades (Tzadik, 2024), Impromptus and Nocturnes (Tzadik, 2025)

By Lee Rice Epstein

Recently, David Adler took to JazzTimes to exclaim about the large amount of excellent guitar music composed by John Zorn from 2017–2024, performed beautifully on a series of duo and trio albums by Julian Lage, Gyan Riley, and Bill Frisell. At that time, I was already anticipating the October release of Nocturnes, with a plan to write about his current leading piano trio with much the same perspective: Can you believe some of the best piano trio music is going, more or less, unrecognized by the quote-unquote jazz world? I sure can.

Yadda yadda yadda, Zorn releases a lot of music, insert argument about onus on critics to keep up, and so on, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad absurdum, ad astra. This feels like a required insert for any and all reviews of Zorn’s music for the past 20 or so years, as if we can’t just accept that he’s working on his own timeline, with a dozen different groups, interwoven concepts, and new books of music every couple of years. If you’re not paying attention, that’s on you, in other words; you’re imposing a set of ground rules he didn’t agree to: record one album, make the press circuit, tour the festivals, record a follow up two years later, rinse and repeat, it could be a brilliant career. Or, make the music you want, when, how, and why you want, with whom you want, call it independent music, a lone bastion in whatever passes for the wilderness today.

And to get here, beginning sometime around 2021, Zorn and pianist Brian Marsella made a slight pivot with the go-to piano trio for recording these works. Up until then, Marsella’s trio with bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Kenny Wollesen had been the prime unit. They recorded a two-part set of music, 2019’s The Hierophant and 2021’s Meditations On the Tarot , the took as its prime material the cards of the Tarot deck, and a rapid-fire firecracker of an album, Calculus, which was released in 2020. This somewhat mini-expedition across parallel paths seems to have set the table for what came next. The first move was to form a second piano trio, with Marsella, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Ches Smith, that would record one book of music drawing inspiration from Baroque and Romantic forms alongside a series of albums exploring jazz piano through a variety of lenses. While the second set has so far produced only two albums— The Fourth Way, which is influenced by Georges Gurdjieff’s writings, and Ou Phrontis, which takes its name from a Greek phrase, meaning something like “who cares,” that was written above the door of T.E. Lawrence’s cottage home at Clouds Hill, a place of respite where he felt no pressure, no bounds or bonds placed upon him—the albums derived from classical forms are already at number four.

Brief sidebar: in 2022, this piano trio also became the basis for another new group, know as Incerto, named for its eponymous debut album. That group adds Julian Lage on guitar and moves through genres and references at a speed closest to the earliest Naked City albums. The guitar, piano, bass, and drums lineup reflects some of the mid-1950s Blue Note and West Coast ensembles, and Incerto expertly revels in that era’s freewheeling excitement for new sounds. Additionally, Roeder, and Smith backed Petra Haden for Love Songs Live, which saw Jesse Harris penning lyrics to to accompany some of Zorn’s impeccable melodies, a case where even Zorn’s multitudes contain multitudes. If you ever want to convince the most skeptical person you know to listen to John Zorn, try one of the sets of music created with Harris.

With all these ideas in motion, after decades of myriad orchestral and chamber compositions and settings, Zorn seems to have found fresh inspiration in the piano trio as a classic jazz ensemble that can take on classical forms from 1600–1950, give or take a few decades. Where the suite goes back in some ways to the 15th and 16th centuries, its structure seems to have been formalized in the Baroque period, where movements like those appearing in Suite for Piano, emerge: “Allemande,” “Sarabande,” “Scherzo,” “Passacaglia,” and “Gigue.” Traditionally, each of these uses different meters and tempi to reflect what are basically dance forms from Germany, France, England, and Spain. Here, they are infused with voicing and phrasing that summons players like Hasaan Ibn Ali, Sonny Clark, Kenny Drew, Freddie Redd, and Elmo Hope. Following Suite for Piano, in rapid succession the group has released Ballades, Impromptus, and Nocturnes , which showcase specific song styles, as opposed to an overarching compositional structure.

Ballades is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful collections of songs I’ve heard in the past five years. Roeder’s bass recalls legends like Sam Jones, Paul Chambers, and Cecil McBee, with his deep tones and often surprising phrases. Call Smith the Billy Higgins or Tootie Heath of the band to round out the midcentury touch points, with the melodic sensibility of Tony Williams and Pete “La Roca” Sims, represented by that paradoxical balance of gentle surging Smith brings to the album). Within the ballad form, Zorn crafts 11 songs that use variable tempi, shifting meters, and some of his most compelling harmonies to great effect.

On Impromptus, the trio approaches a form typically reserved for solo performance. As a tight, working unit, Marsella, Roeder, and Smith excel at moving with uniform purpose. Throughout the set, references to previous Zorn works ebb and flow, with melodic quotes stretching into lengthy group improvisations. Marsella’s piano playing has developed a number of unique characteristics he elevates Zorn’s music into a notably personal performance (it would be amazing to see another piano trio record any part of this classically inspired series, the opportunities for individual expression appear broad and well suited to multiple interpretations). As with the impromptu form in its generally recognized, albeit slightly out of fashion, style, the trio mixes a number of different musical structures and contexts. Roeder’s driving bass lines flow steadily alongside Marsella’s occasionally bright, singsong runs.

Nocturnes, per its traditional style, is a fascinating blend of the impromptus and ballades, with a warmth and lushness that feels like a natural outgrowth of the trio’s years of working closely together. In eight nocturnes over 40 minutes, many of the familiar touchstones for Zorn’s classically leaning work show their influence, Alexander Scriabin, Claude Debussy, and the master of the form Fredéric Chopin. Personally, after spinning these four albums nonstop, I’d add elements of Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré to the list (for both Impromptusand Nocturnes , truthfully), influences that have been less overtly prevalent in Zorn’s music in the past, but the depth in the piano-bass voicing recalls early 20th century French explorations. Deep into the album, “Nocturne Nr. 6” and “Nocturne Nr. 7” shimmer, with Roeder playing some gorgeously inventive bass counterpoint.

I haven’t yet seen what more might be coming in this book of music, though one can reasonably guess there will likely be an album of sonatas, serenades, divertimenti, or perhaps a collective of singular forms like toccata or rondo. Zorn previously composed and released a set of études, The Turner Études, with pianist Stephen Gosling, which, for those who want to go deep into Zorn’s compositional language, works almost like a Rosetta Stone, with its quotes and recursions of various melodic snippets from previous albums and books of music. With this ongoing book of music for piano trio, however, Marsella, Roeder, and Smith are playing music that feels less moored to the past, ironically, instead striking out to a challengingly melodious future.

Sute for Piano

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=8389

Ballades

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9310

Impromptus

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9322

Nocturnes

https://www.tzadik.com/index.php?catalog=9326

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Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Ki (Libra, 2025)

By Stef Gijssels

This year we are blessed with several trumpet-piano albums. There is the excellent duet between Sylvie Courvoisier and Wadada Leo Smith on "Angel Falls", and the excellent duets between Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura. 

I guess that "Ki" is their tenth duo album, out of the few dozen on which they perform in other ensembles. Over the years, their art has become more precise, more symbiotic, as if playing as one. "Ki" in Japanese means 'energy' or 'life force', but it can also mean 'wood'. All the title tracks on this album refer to trees, so we could assume that the two meanings of the word are possible, and they are penned by Tamura, except for the last track - "Dan's Ocean Side Listening Post" - which obviously does not refer to a tree and which is composed by Fujii. 

The music on this album is quiet, meditative, intimate. And in contrast to "Aloft", reviewed below, Tamura does not use extended techniques on his trumpet, staying well within the clarity of tone you expect from the instrument. Tamura explains: “This time, I wanted to play the entire album with the same atmosphere. The image of that atmosphere was of standing dignified in clear air. I wrote my seven songs in two days, so I was able to maintain that image. I just thought about the world I wanted to create.”

The atmosphere is further created by Fujii's sparse piano playing. It is less dense, with less dramatic energy as on her other albums. Like Japanese drawings, the sparsity of the sounds and the silences in between are an integral part of the whole. Fujii comments: “It was not easy for me to play it because the music forces me to play less than I usually do. At first, I wasn’t comfortable playing that way because it was so new to me!” There are even long moments when the trumpet is the only instrument to be heard. 

The album's strength is the wonderful coherence of all compositions, their lyrical and poetic quality and of course the excellent playing and interaction of both artists. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Natsuki Tamura & Satoko Fuji - Aloft (Libra, 2024)

"Aloft" is a different album from "Ki", and could almost be its mirror image. Even if all tracks are improvised, it is often Fujii's piano that sets the tone, builds the structure and brings the pieces to their closing. Her skills at composing on the spot are exceptional, and for some tracks it truly is hard to believe that they are improvised. While Fujii's compositional freedom gives the foundational structure, Tamura's trumpet playing acts as like a bird being kept aloft in the wind. His trumpet soars, yet he also resorts to many extended techniques, muffled sounds, squeezed sounds, stuttering sounds, oppressed and whispering sounds, as well as shouting and singing through his brass. 

All tracks have received titles referring to bird flight, and it's an apt imagery for the music, even if the titles were not used for inspiration but were added to the music many months later, once a selection of their improvisation session had been made. Fujii once told me that her music was not inspired by visual imagery, after I said to her that this was my impression, as you can easily picture natural sceneries when listening to her music, and this album is not different, but who is right: the artist or the art lover? 

“We just decided to play something,” says Fujii. “Natsuki listens to me very carefully and respects my playing so much but he has a very different sensibility and means of expression.” Tamura adds, “We listen carefully to each other, but at the same time we both understand that contrast and surprise are also important.” The liner notes add: "After being married for 36 years and sharing countless projects, they didn't even need to plan for it or bring any written material. They just let inspiration guide them through various improvisations."

The music was recorded on December 13, 2023 at Samurai Hotel, New York City, which is actually a recording studio and not a hotel.

Listen and download from Bandcamp.

Satoko Fujii & Natsuki Tamura - Kazahana (Libra, 2025)

"Kazahana" - their eleventh duo album - brings us two fully improvised lengthy pieces, the first clocking at 18 minutes, the second at 33 minutes. Maybe because of their length, or maybe because they're fully improvised in a live environment, the sound is much rawer than on the two other records in this review. The music expands, there's tension, contradictions in style and mood, and the length of the pieces allows for developments, for unfolding narratives that need not be contained to a structure or a pattern. There are long moments of solo time for each of them, not in the sense to show off their skills, but rather as natural evolutions of the music itself. 

Both artists are deeply attuned to each other's styles, preferences, and responses, resulting in an interaction that is not only remarkably coherent but also a joy to witness in its spontaneous co-creation. Interestingly, near the end of the second piece, it is Tamura who introduces a repetitive phrase, offering a steady framework over which Fujii improvises with a distinctly modern classical sensibility.

The music was recorded during a live performance on December 25, 2024 at Koendori Classics, Shibuya, Tokyo. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Jung-Jae Kim's Shamanism 4tet

A intriguing new group from Berlin, the Shamanism 4tet is presented here at a show in late September at the at Kühlspot Social Club. The group is Jung-Jae Kim on tenor saxophone, Chris Heenan on soprano saxophone and the fantastic contrabass clarinet, Andreas Voccia on synthesizer and Marcello S. Busato playing drums. The group has a debut album out on Relative Pitch Records.

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Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Max Eastley - Some Uncharted Evening (scatterArchive, 2025)

By Martin Schray

I’ve been listening to a lot of John Butcher’s music lately, his entire repertoire. But when I heard this trio with Steve Beresford (piano and objects) and Max Eastley (electro-acoustic monochord, friction drum, percussion, piston flute), I was reminded of the discourse launched by Wynton Marsalis and the late musician and critic Stanley Crouch, who described free jazz as a dead end, whose experiments had damaged real jazz because the musicians simply weren’t virtuosic enough to carry on the jazz legacy. Especially Crouch claimed that free jazz was actually more European new classical music, mixed with a few bits and pieces of Ellington, Monk, and Bud Powell (he mentioned that as to Cecil Taylor’s music). He probably wouldn’t have been able to relate to this trio’s music, but the musicians wouldn’t have cared about his restrictive attitude either, because they simply are not interested in how their music is labeled. A certain beat might be foreign to them, but improvisation is not, because its spirit - along with all kinds of sound explorations - defines this album, recorded on September, 22nd in 2023 at Ferme-Asile in Sion/Switzerland, as part of the first edition of the Biennale Son.

“Part 1“ is indeed an excursion in new sounds; advanced, angular ambient music, so to say. Eastley’s flute hints a melody, the sounds from inside the piano rumble away, Butcher’s distorted saxophone tries to find its way. The music is more oriented towards the sounds of nature than jazz. However, when jazz does shine through, it’s as a distant echo in a piano line or a saxophone lick. And even then, only perhaps. In general, the use of silence and contrasts seems to be more important: the counterpoint of glockenspiel sounds and extreme bass noises, or the abrupt stopping of the briefly accelerated tempo.

“Part 2“ in particular exudes this spirit even more: power, accentuation, tumbling sequences of notes, dark monochrome drones, creaking noises, birdsong. One gets the impression that each of the three is at peace with himself, close to the others and yet distant at the same time. Changes in tempo, a wide range of dynamics out of nowhere - these accompany the progression of the music without becoming nervous or even affected. Max Eastley seems to capture the babble of voices from the piano and saxophone, especially when he lets his instrument (the aforementioned two-metre long electroacoustic monochord arc, which he developed from an Aeolian harp in the 1970s) howl like a monstrous animal in the middle section of the piece, before the trio almost lapses into a small folkloric passage. In general, the three comb through their material, freely and spontaneously, while at the same time being sensitive to all clichés, especially those of free jazz and new music. Throughout the set, it becomes increasingly clear that three kindred spirits are throwing themselves into the creative process of momentary music with enormous enthusiasm. Spurred on by bursts of energy, formulated with a striking sound language and - of course - with the utmost ability to listen to each other. In this trio, there is no single effervescent source of initiative; it is a collective process of the highest order that structures the discharges, the contrasts, the originality.

 An Uncharted Eveningis full of seething, mercurial layers of sound and highly differentiated ramifications. Perhaps the evening began “uncharted,” but after an hour, the sonic research has progressed very far. Jazz purists may not know what to make of it; for them, it will perhaps always remain uncharted territory. For open ears, it’s a feast.

Steve Beresford, John Butcher, Max Eastley: An Uncharted Evening is available as a download. You can listen to it and buy it here: https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/some-uncharted-evening

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Anthony Braxton Quartet - Quartet (England) 1985 (Burning Ambulance, 2025)

Roundtable conversation with Gary Chapin, Andrew Choate, and Lee Rice Epstein

We join our trio of intrepids in the middle of a conversation about the new Burning Ambulance release of Anthony Braxton Quartet “bootlegs,” Quartet (England) 1985. The release presents music recorded by Graham Lock, who traveled with the quartet to write his book,Forces in Motion . Adding to the original Leo recordings of the tour, we now get sets from Sheffield, Bristol, Leicester, and Southampton, in addition to sound check recordings from throughout the tour. If you are into this kind of thing, the set amounts to 6+ hours of manna from Heaven.

Gary Chapin
Let's start with the magnitude that we talked about because it seems like this has always been an iconic tour. Partly based on the Leo recordings—which are great—but also because of Graham Locke's book. This is probably the most well documented tour in this kind of music. So, is this an iconic tour because of the documentation or because of the performances themselves?

Andrew Choate
I think that's a great question. The music definitely stands on its own and listening to all of these further recordings made me think this is the heart of Braxton's music for me, It's where I discovered his music, you know, the first time somebody played me some of his music. 16 years old. They showed me Forces in Motion and I was instantly intrigued and wanted to get to know more.

Graham's book helps a lot, but his book also talks about other aspects of Braxton's music. For me personally, this quartet was the height of when Braxton had a working band, and could do stuff on a really regular basis. They have this concentrated tour opportunity and I think it allowed a certain essence of his music to really get strong.

Lee Rice Epstein
Maybe before hearing these additional recordings, I might have said it was the book that helped cement these recordings. That tour is critical, but hearing more performances by the group—

You know what Andrew's getting at? It's a really transformational time for Braxton. He had already hit a bunch of highs, like his whole Arista run.

Andrew Choate
Yeah.

Lee Rice Epstein
Like Montreaux/Berlin (1976), I go back to that a ton. That's a classic live Braxton. But in a way—listening to it in 2025—it’still just kind of like, yeah, they're really really out there in the compositional structure, but they're also still doing a lot of head, solo, solo, solo, head, right? And England (1985) is like something else entirely. He's got three very brave musicians who are pushing as hard against expectations as he is. Marilyn Crispell's probably one of his most important all time partners in music.

Gary Chapin
I actually saw this quartet in New York City, and that was amazing. One of the things that I loved about this period was that Braxton was moving into his own universe. But he was still drawing from those compositions around the 40s and the thirty-threes and the twenty-threes. I saw them do 23G, which—I love that piece very much

Andrew Choate
There're a couple of sort of paradoxical things that I wrote down while I was listening. I kept thinking about Braxton's humbleness. Like he's writing these compositions and getting people to play them and push back. But I heard a sort of fundamental humility in the music, which I had never heard before. Like he's really excited about the music, but it's notFor Alto. The structures that he's created, and the young musicians with him pushing and pulling, emphasize that sense.

Lee Rice Epstein14:08
I for sure hear it. I've never met him. I only know people who know him, but he seems like one of the great humility engines in music.

[...]

Lee Rice Epstein
So what did you guys think [of the new set]? Even when you first heard they were coming out like, were you, “Oh yeah, that's gonna be all gold” or a little bit like, “I don't know.” They were very upfront about the fact that these were not professional recordings.

Gary Chapin
My first thought was that this is going to be extremely interesting. My second thought was that I am no longer the kind of person who listens to every archival recording recorded in the club bathroom with a mic snaked out to the bandstand. That kind of stuff just doesn't get me anymore. Since they warned us that it might not be great production, I said, “I'll manage my expectations.”

But there was nothing about the production that detracts from the music! For me it's just astounding that in 19—I don't know, what was that—80? 81? That they were able to get that quality from like a hand recording that Graham did.

Andrew Choate
Yeah, my first thought was also, “I bet the production is just not going to be very good.” But, I'm interested in the music and I can filter that out. But listening to it: these are absolutely acceptable recordings, really. The balance: you hear the differences in the halls. It's like, “Wow, this is, this is what a live concert feels like.

Gary Chapin
You can even hear the bass very clearly, which is so rare.

Lee Rice Epstein
One of them—I think it's the Bristol set—sounds like you're in a small room. And you’ve got all four instruments—I wasn’t ready for the quality of the playing. In a way it’s like the Leo sets were the safer ones because there is some very, very out playing here.

Gary Chapin
The opening of Sheffield, which is the first cut of the whole set, was such a blistering statement of purpose. It was just amazing, like a supernova of sound right from the start, so much energy. And it didn’t calm down for nearly 10 minutes.

Andrew Choate
A supernova of sound is a great way to put it because it is. It is really dense, it is really lively and it just grabs you right from the start.

Lee Rice Epstein
So, because I can't help myself. I made a playlist of the whole tour in order. I was looking at Graham's book a little bit online. Sheffield kicks off this set and is the first, yeah, but it's like the third, the third stop on their tour. By that point, they've really warmed up. And they sound it. They sound right. They don't let up for a minute. There's no coasting.

Gary Chapin
They're always interesting. There's a lot of emotional energy being spent.

Lee Rice Epstein
Additional thoughts? I don't know if we want to get into individual sets. We've talked about the whole of it, but are there specific highs? Listeners who haven't dipped into this yet, can get the set or you can get the individual concerts.

Andrew Choate
I mean, I would say if you're interested in this music, just get the whole thing. There's so much. I think the one show I came back to the most often though was Leicester, partly because in the first set there's just an extraordinary Mark Dresser solo.
There's also an extraordinary Gerry Hemingway solo, and they go on for more significant lengths of time than I think I would have guessed from reading Graham's book or from thinking about Braxton's compositions. They're significant.

Lee Rice Epstein
It's funny. This is exactly why I like the round table format for something like this, because I have my own favorite set that I've been going back to most, which is Bristol. So we each named a different one, right? Which is very fun, but I concur 100%. I think like anyone who's interested, there's no reason not to hear all, all, all the music. There's delight in every set.

Andrew Choate
We're really lucky that there's enough interest to have this stuff out there. It’s on a different level. There's no way not to be rewarded.

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Angelica Sanchez, Barry Guy & Ramon Lopez - Live at Jazzdor (Maya Recordings, 2024)

By Stef Gijssels

The question why some albums never get reviewed is as baffling for a seasoned reviewer as it can be for the regular reader. This is one of them. A great trio with three excellent musicians: Angelica Sanchez on piano, Barry Guy on bass and Ramón López on drums and percussion. 

The performance was recorded at the JAZZDOR Festival in Strasbourg on the 15th November 2023. 

From the very beginning, the trio is full of sparkling energy, crisp playing and symbiotic improvisation. The music is so intense that it almost becomes tangible. It is full of surprises, as it alternates between uptempo driven passion and controlled calmer moments, and remains at all times fresh and memorable. It's suprising how the format of the piano trio can still be inventive, captivating and at times even overwhelming. Sanchez is brilliant in her capacity to lead improvisations to unexpected and rounded closures, as if she planned it from the start. And Guy's resonating bass is as good and creative as can be expected, as is López's percussion, astonishing, unpredictable and accurate. 

Barry Guy and Ramón López have performed many times before, and released dozens of albums on which both perform, notably in Barry Guy's "Blue Shroud Band". It's the first time Angelica Sanchez performs with either of the other musicians, something which surprises Barry Guy in his liner notes: "Jazz Festivals have often provide the opportunity for a first encounter with musicians that are “on the radar”, so to speak , but for various reasons (often geographical) never came to fruition." 

This one is in any case a winner. 

The happy shouts of the audience and the fun of the performers at the end says it all. 

Listen and download from Bandcamp. 

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Ivo Perelman and Ray Anderson - 12 Stages of Spiritual Alchemy (Fundacja Słuchaj Records, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

An unusual pairing – that of sax and trombone makes for a worthy listen on this impressive recording. Saxophone player Ivo Perelman and trombone player Ray Anderson create some wonderful sounds, exploring the mystical depths of musical interaction.

The recording was made in 2022 by longtime Perelman engineer Jim Clouse at Park West Studios (Brooklyn). Fundacja Słuchaj's edition frames twelve concise movements named for stages of alchemy (Separation, Calcination, Coagulation, etc.), resulting in 56 minutes of magical chemistry. Perelman has a long relationship with Park West/Clouse. Perelman and Anderson recorded together on the 2-CD quartet set ‘Molten Gold’ with Joe Morris and Reggie Nicholson, released by Fundacja Słuchaj in 2023, although this is the first duo recording by the pair.

From the opening announcement of the trombone, this album is a musical delight, and the connection between the musicians is palpable. Across the twelve tracks here, the explorative nature of Perelman is tempered somewhat at times and matched by the astounding agility of Anderson on trombone. ‘Separation’, the opening track, sees the heavy, brassy nature of the trombone outshout the grainy, lower register of Perelman’s tenor at times, then pull back, leaving the sax to sing. The track develops as an intimate conversation, from opposing phrases to the final minute where the duo extends their phrasing and forms a beautiful, harmonic close.

‘Calcination’ is edgy, sharp, and prosaic in its essence, as the trombone skilfully weaves around the sax’s melodic phrasing. The character of both players emerges in the playful nature of the final section, where Perelman casually drops a line from a nursery rhyme into the continuing improvisation of the trombone.

‘Putrefaction’ is short, harmonious in parts, and very intense, while ‘Dissolution’ is laid back, swingy in places, and a dextrous exhibition of register-switching combines with acrobatic rises and falls from both players.

‘Coagulation’ sees both instruments creating short phrases which are swapped, extended, and moulded, the passages woven around each other and rhythmic changes that happen simultaneously yet spontaneously with that slight pause from one player, then the other, as they first lead, then follow – pure improvisational cooperation.

‘Conjunction’ begins with a funereal opening, reminiscent perhaps of a New Orleans death march, before the mood lightens and evolves into a triumphal procession of sound with a flourish to finish.

‘Sublimation’ is warpy, guttural, and both players work to create something sounding like a nest of hornets, so intense is the sound, while ‘Exaltation’ sees the growling, guttural sounds of the trombone pitted against Perelman’s cheekiness with his sax, swinging between lyrical melodies. As the track develops, a playfulness enters the music and staccato notes are exchanged, and a sharp, crackling melody develops between the instruments.

‘Projection’ is just over nine minutes of profound exploration with both musicians finding the extremes of their instruments’ range as well as introducing a variety of different musical phrasing and technique, while ‘Multiplication’ is a short romp across octaves and registers.

‘Fermentation’ is buzzy, fever-pitched in places and features blasts from the trombone, rivulets of sound from the sax, and some beautifully tempered harmonics before ‘Cibation’, the closing track, which sees both musicians finding melodies of their own, weaving towards and away from each other in glorious disharmony, yet using notation closely related so it makes sense.

This is a wonderful recording and sees Anderson’s exuberance infecting the music throughout. Paired with Perelman’s ability to switch mood, tempo, and his unerring musicality, the music is at times intense and always accessible for listeners preferring improvisation or harmony. The pairing of trombone and tenor sax creates a wealth of sound possibilities, none of which pass either musician by. The result is free improvisation that fuses the timbre of both instruments and creates character and a simple, but profound beauty.

For an experimental album, with all processes explored and gone through, the result is a discovery of new sounds and a well-tempered album.

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Ivo Perelman and Nate Wooley - Polarity 4 (Burning Ambulance, 2025)

By Sammy Stein

Tenor saxophonist Ivo Perelman and trumpet player Nate Wooley continue their long-running musical partnership with the release of Polarity 4. It is released digitally and as a limited edition of 500 CDs on Burning Ambulance Music.

Polarity 4 sees different directions explored as the duo find yet more ways to investigate musical possibilities between their individuality and shared musical imaginations.

Perelman has already amassed a varied and wide-ranging discography, with releases on numerous labels including Enja, Clean Feed, Leo, Homestead, and Cadence, to name a few. It might seem there are few ways still open to explore for Perelman yet, here with Wooley, Polarity 4 proves this is not the case. Its nine tracks include the first overdubbing in Perelman’s catalogue, with the opening track, Polarity 1, featuring ‘two’ of Perelman and Wooley improvising with each other and themselves. Perelman and Wooley prove themselves improvisers willing to seek and explore different thoroughfares among the much-travelled experimental landscape they inhabit. Perelman is always finding new ways to play with others, even those he has worked with many times before.

The Polarity 4 CDs are heavy-duty gatefold mini-LP sleeves printed on textured paper, with artwork by Burning Ambulance Music co-founder I.A. Freeman.

As ever, where Perelman is involved, the tracks on Polarity 4 serve as part of the continuing conversation Perelman is involved in with music and fellow musicians. Track 1 is busy, with the aforementioned overdubbing serving to create a textured sound with the musicians responding to each other and their own phrasing. The contrast in Track 2 is apparent because now we have ‘just’ two musicians, yet somehow they work a sound that is almost as busy as the opening track. Fast runs are echoed and tossed back and forth between the instruments, each return featuring a variation, however minuscule. Perelman regularly picks up the note that Wooley finishes on to create a continuum of sound. The lack of harmonics and the clarity of the streams of sound mean each note is crystal clear.

Track 3 sees more overlapping of individual phrasing, creating interesting conjectures of harmonies – sometimes jarring, but at other times gloriously developed as the staccato section sees each musician responding harmonically to the notation that goes before. Track 4 has a playful, yet competitive air as the musicians trade short, punchy lines and phrases. The middle section involves a back and forth of slurry, schmaltzy phrases, ranging from the depths of the sax to the highest trills of the trumpet.

Track 5 is wonderfully layered as trumpet and sax weave around each other, overlap, and work their individual lines, coming together for an almost classical duet format towards the end, while Track 6 has a gentle start, with hushed phrasing from both players before it slowly builds towards a tuneful end. Track 7 is an exploration of harmonics, while Track 8 is perhaps the stand-out track in terms of musical interaction, involving some brilliant register switching and changes between melodies and counterpoint. Track 9 sees the musicians finding yet more ways for sax and trumpet to interact, with full measure taken of the brassy tones of the trumpet, cutting across the timbre of the sax.

Polarity 4 features creative and explorative musicianship, as you might expect from players of this calibre. There is harmony, contrast, and above all, a sense of competitive, yet enjoyable and controlled mastery of sound.

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Jack DeJohnette (1942-2025) - a personal impression

Photo by Jeff Forman

By Stef Gijssels

Sad news about Jack DeJohnette, one of the most acclaimed and influential drummers ever. I will not go into his biography or enumerate his achievements: they are many and others have already done it better than I ever could. Suffice to say that he appears on 1154 album credits according to Discogs, and he performed with almost any jazz musician that mattered, from Bill Evans, over Charles Lloyd, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, John Surman to Wadada Leo Smith. He was part in many of the historical junctures in jazz music, and contributed to shaping it. 

Here is the story of my life with Jack DeJohnette as a musical guide. 

Jack DeJohnette New Directions (ECM, 1978)

I was not yet twenty when I bought this album by mistake. I knew Abercrombie from his previous fusion album "Timeless" (with Jan Hammer and Jack DeJohnette), and I loved fusion (please forgive me, I was in my teens then). When I heard this album, I was devastated to have spent my limited resources on music I did not like. So to teach myself a lesson, I punished myself to listen to it twenty times. Yet lo and behold: what I found unlistenable at the beginning, started opening up like a beautiful flower the more I listened to it. Its sense of freedom, the musicianship, its unpredictability and overall tone became even more appealing and enjoyable with each listen. I knew that this was it! This was absolutely brilliant. Today, this old vinyl is still within arm's reach. It has lost nothing of its power. Lester Bowie, John Abercrombie, Eddie Gomez ... and a bluesy and lyrical Jack DeJohnette.

John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette – Gateway (ECM, 1975)

DeJohnette also teamed up with Dave Holland and John Abercrombie on what has become "Gateway", the trio named after their first album together. In this small guitar trio format, DeJohnette's drumming plays an absolutely essential part of the music. It's a strange, mysterious and wonderfully appealing album. Abercrombie is a very unusual guitarist, yet his style matches very well with DeJohnette's unique and subtle drumming. He's a lyricist as much as the other two.

Kenny Wheeler – Gnu High (ECM, 1976)

Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler's 'Gnu High' is one of ECM's iconic albums, with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette as members of the ensemble. ECM has always had the incredible value of bringing musicians together to create music that would otherwise not have seen the light of day. This is one of those examples. “What you hear,” says Jack DeJohnette, “is the spontaneity of the moment.” The band is stellar and lifts Wheeler to a truly high level of music. 

Terje Rypdal / Miroslav Vitous / Jack DeJohnette (ECM, 1979)

This album was also one of my favourites for many years. Rypdal's icey guitar pierces through the wonderful foundations laid by the other two virtuosi. Listen to the exquisite and subtle drums intro to "Sunrise"! Its atmosphere is chilling yet deeply emotional. All three musicians are excellent, yet DeJohnette's drumming is exceptional and already his signature sound: playing around the rhythm in a loose and flexible style with lots of little touches on his cymbals. He creates a percussive atmosphere, a percussive environment, co-creating the overall sound instead of keeping the pace. 

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette - Inside Out (ECM, 2011)

And then there are of course the numerous albums with Keith Jarrett and Gary Peacock. This is very much Jarrett's musical concept, yet the absolutely flawless interaction and fluidity of the three artists is exceptional and not a surprise that Jarrett kept asking them again and again to perform. Not all of it is good, and I'm less a fan of their take on jazz standards, but some are truly outstanding improvised piano trios, regardless of the genre. 

Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, Dewey Redman, Mike Brecker – 80/81 (ECM, 1980)

I am not a Pat Metheny fan - a little too mellow to my taste - although I can appreciate this excellent album with a stellar cast of some of the luminaries in jazz. It has a great rendition of Ornette Coleman's "Turnaround", my favourite track on the double vinyl, ending with one of the musicians (I guess Dewey Redman) shouting enthusiastically: “Yooohoooo, boy!, Jack DeJohnette, man!” in praise of the drummer's exceptional contribution. 

A reviewer on CD Universe writes: "And perhaps the highlight of the recording is the intricate yet effortless drumming of Jack DeJohnette. It stands out throughout the recordings."

John Surman & Jack DeJohnette - Invisible Nature (ECM, 2002)

When I just started with this blog so many years ago, I reviewed this album succinctly. It is an exceptional co-created live duo recording between the British saxophonist and the American drummer. The result is an astonishing musical feast, an ode to life. It is in the most subtle moments, such as on "Mysterium" that it is fascinating to hear how DeJohnette captures the essence of the saxophonist's sonic vision and co-creates the perfect and nuanced sound to complete it. 

Wadada Leo Smith & Jack DeJohnette - America (Tzadik, 2009)

The same joy of interaction can be found on this stellar duo album with Wadada Leo Smith. Both men are at the absolute top of their skills and the interplay is stellar as can be expected. From beginning to end this music. I reviewed it then in 2009 and the full text can be read here. I wrote it is "An absolute "must have" for anyone interested in music." I have not changed my opinion.

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970)

And then of course there is "Bitches Brew", on which DeJohnette is one of the drummers next to Lenny White and Charles Alias. A genuine jazz masterpiece, it breaks stylistic boundaries while highlighting DeJohnette’s extraordinary versatility and his talent for adapting his unique sound to any jazz style.

Other albums with Davis include "At Filmore" (1970), "Jack Johnson" (1971), "Live-Evil" (1971). "On The Corner" (1972) "Black Beauty" (1973), and "Big Fun" (1974).

Michael Mantler - The Hapless Child (Watt, 1976)

One more memorable album is this utterly bizarre production with "inscrutable stories" by Edward Gorey, sung by Robert Wyatt, and with the brilliant music of Michael Mantler performed by Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Jack DeJohnette and Terje Rypdal. The album defies classification. It's a kind of gothic prog rock album, with utterly dark horror stories, and hair-raising dramatic compositions and performance. No doubt one of the weirdest production ever, requiring some getting into, yet I can only suggest to keep listening, and preferably repeatedly. It's different, yet again, with DeJohnette adding a lot to the overall sound. This is actually the first album I ever heard with Jack DeJohnette, still in my teenage rock period and without being aware of his participation. 

Amidst all this fantastic and creative work, Jack DeJohnette also participated in the Blues Brothers movie, also not taking himself too seriously as the drummer of the Louisiana Gator Boys, an all-star bluesband with B.B.King, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton, Dr. John,  Steve Winwood and many more, performing "How Blue Can You Get".

We will miss him dearly but his art is here to stay and to be cherished forever. 

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