The lineup for this new release feels like something you dreamt about and then woke up to realise was real, or a game of fantasy jazz trios. Whoever had the idea of getting veteran drummer Andrew Cyrille, peerless guitarist Bill Frisell and great English keys player Kit Downes together deserves an award. Then double that for putting them in a New York church with Kit at the seat of a Baroque-style organ with its 27 stops and 1,670 pipes.
Well it looks like the plaudit deserving person was Sun Chung, founder and producer of Red Hook Records who had previously produced three studio albums with Cyrille in trio and quartet settings with Bill Frisell. He’d also steered Downes’ ethereal pipe organ contributions on the 2023 Red Hook album Medna Roso.
The resulting set of new tunes and improvisations on traditional folk songs is a bold and beautiful outing for a hugely original sonic set up with three masters at the helm. In Chung’s words “This is a trio in a deep state of not knowing, of having little idea of what the music might actually be or become. Hyper-focused yet free. Fluid and, to some extent, admirably fearless.”
This is unlike any other recording you’ll hear this year.
This is our Album Of The Week on One Jazz w/c Monday 30th September