Ancestral
Whirlwind, 2025
9/10
The alto sax wizard, John O’Gallagher, is in fine company here, where Ben Monder, Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart accompany him across 8 adventurous jazz tracks.
“Awakening” starts with a soft ambience, where the rich sax and Hart and Cyrille’s agile drumming help create a thoughtful mood, and “Under The Wire” follows with a frisky energy, as Monder’s fluid guitar suits the playful drumming.
The middle spot belongs to “Tug”, where a bit of a droning quality accompanies the colorful sax prowess, while “Profess” builds into exploratory, free jazz fun thanks to O’Gallagher’s animated spirit and the skilled drumming.
“Quixotica” and “Postscript” exit the listen. The former is intimate, poetic even, and tugs on the heartstrings, and the latter finishes with all the players contributing their talents in spades for an improvised and enlightening bout of creativity.
An effort that was influenced by O’Gallagher’s PhD studies into the music of John Coltrane, every moment here is unpredictable, timeless and worthy of repeated visits.
Travels well with: Sam Morrison- Cosmic Trip; Paulo Almeida- Love In Motion