Recommended: Quinsin Nachoff – “Horizons Ensemble”

Saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff has a new album out, and it’s comprised of personnel and an edge reflective of his current NYC digs.  But back in the day, he was still living in his native Toronto, and it’s interesting to see how his 2006 release Horizons Ensemble also reflects a sound that matched his surroundings.  And, yet, even as some things change, there are those essential components that speak to the constancy of life even as those things inevitably change around them.  Nothing about the chamber jazz session of Horizons Ensemble is typical from track to track, mirroring only itself, yet expansive in a way that’s elemental.  Opening “Bogardus Place” paints a gorgeous field of harmonics and draws the melody like a river running through it, while “Desert Landscape” maps out hostile terrain that can be traversed only with darting percussive motions and winding melodic curls.  And then there’s “Glacial Lake,” where harmony and melody are inseparable, of the same earth and air.  The album takes to the air with “A River Remembers Rain,” which floats with a forward motion, an autumn leaf cradled by a stiff breeze.  That stiff breeze breaks off into multiple crosscurrents with “Cartoons” and then expands into the fury of the storm with “African Skies” for the final dramatic moments.

It’s a gorgeous album.  That beauty, however, also possesses substantial edge.  And where Nachoff chooses on this earlier recording not to draw any blood, his 2016 release Flux is not so restrained.  There’s more to come regarding Flux, but for now, enjoy this early view of Nachoff’s work.

Your album personnel:  Quinsin Nachoff (tenor & soprano saxophones), John Taylor (piano), Ernst Reijseger (cello), Nathalie Bonin (violin) and Pamela Attariwala (violin).

This Self-Produced album was released in 2006 (or, perhaps, 2008).

Listen to more album tracks at the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Jazz from the Toronto scene.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic | CDBaby