A new trio from NY bassist Max Johnson with Anna Webber on tenor saxophone & flute and Michael Sarin on drums, performing five lyrically inclined yet inventive compositions from Johnson, allowing distinction for each performer as they bridge sections between fluid straight-ahead playing and spaciously singular experimentation, keeping player and listener on their toes.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2022 Country: USA Packaging: Digipack Recorded at Big Orange Sheep, in Brooklyn, New York, on August 18th, 2021, by Michael Perez-Cisneros
"Orbit of Sound is the new release from composer/double bassist Max Johnson's newest trio, with Anna Webber on tenor saxophone/flute, and Michael Sarin on drumset. Formed in 2018, the trio traverses tightly knit composed music and patient, sprawling improvised textures, highlighting all three individual voices as improvisers.
The trio completed their inaugural tour of Europe in February & March, having to cancel their final concert and subsequent recording due to the pandemic, delaying the recording a full year and a half. But finally the music is being released as the first release on Johnson's new record label Unbroken Sounds, coinciding with the trio's spring tour of Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Austria."-Broken Sound
"Multi-faceted bassist Max Johnson helms a terrific trio on Orbit Of Sound. Although also active in bluegrass and contemporary classical arenas, this set forefronts Johnson's jazz chops as composer and improviser with Anna Webber (tenor saxophone and flute) and Michael Sarin (drums).
The opening "A Quick One" shows the album title to be aptly descriptive of the sort of relentless momentum Johnson initiates, as bass and drums circle intricate boppish tenor in interlocking patterns. Here and elsewhere, evidence of Johnson's composer's ear surfaces in how cannily he extracts maximum impact from the three voices. But the same cut also exemplifies another of the program's traits: sudden mood changes. The braided interplay abruptly drops away, replaced by a lighter airier section, which launches Webber on a path veering from staccato pure tones to expressive slurs. A subsequent drum solo constitutes one of the highlights of the piece, as Sarin places different elements of his kit into intersecting orbits too, a taut logic emerging from his crisp timbral command. It is always fascinating to witness how the group meets the challenge of making its way back to the theme following one of the precipitous about-faces.
On "The Professor" the combination of droning arco bass and precisely controlled bubbling saxophone multiphonics take the piece into very rarefied atmosphere, eventually retrieved by a somber unison and increasingly coherent cymbal and plucked bass accents. They also explore a similarly extreme soundworld at the outset of "Over / Under", built from creaking bow work, scraped percussion and tenor susurrations and whistled overtones, incrementally moving towards a written line not blossoming until the very end. They come closest to overt melody on the solemn and valedictory "Shepherd's Morning", but even here breathy tenor is accompanied by Sarin's crumpling and rustling noises, which undercuts any sentimentality, emblematic of a release that constantly defies expectations."-John Sharpe, NYC Jazz Record