Tori Freestone is a contemporary jazz artist from the tips of her fingers to whichever toe she taps, but very personal routes have taken her there – from playing the penny whistle and the violin as a child (for family folk gigs with her musician parents), to shifting from college flautist to self-taught tenor saxophonist as a twentysomething – mesmerised by Wayne Shorter’s legendary collaborations with Joni Mitchell. All that patient gestation comes through in Freestone’s music now, a lean, mobile, unplugged and spontaneous agenda for just her tenor sax, occasional violin and voice, and quick-witted bass and drums from regulars Dave Manington and Tim Giles.
The Canary Islands “sea of clouds” mountain vistas – El Mar de Nubes – inspired the spaciousness, intensity, and fluid intuitions of Freestone’s third album for her sax-led trio, a lineup for which the bar has been dauntingly set by legends including Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Sam Rivers and Joe Henderson. The title track foregrounds Freestone’s rich, pliable tenor tone, yarn-spinner’s pacing and expressive dynamics.
Pieces such as the springy, staccato Hiding Jekyll and La Nochevieja mix tight hooks, free jazz and conversational call-and-response. El Camino opens as swooningly lyrical before Giles’ gathering groove spurs Freestone’s imaginative building of long-lined improvisations with minimal emphasis-signalling, and Los Indianos suggests a cross between a Sonny Rollins calypso and Ornette Coleman-esque freefall. If her vocal version of Shenandoah is unsteady, Freestone’s two tenor sax interpretations of the song draw on her formidable tonal range, piper-like elisions, and balance of delicacy and bite. The Tori Freestone Trio’s evolution forges on.
Also out this month
Israeli piano trio Shalosh’s virtuosic Onwards and Upwards vivaciously taps the Bad Plus, Ahmad Jamal, the hooks and rock crescendos of Esbjörn Svensson Trio and more.
On Harp vs Harp, blues-leaning harmonica star Grégoire Maret and guitar-like Colombian jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda stir breezy, Pat Methenyesque swingers (Metheny is a Maret fan), ardent ballads, and a deep-toned slow tango for Castañeda’s vocalist wife Andrea Tierra. UK pianist Liam Noble’s terrific The Long Game is a rhythmically wily, electronics-steeped adventure with Polar Bear’s Tom Herbert and Seb Rochford on bass and drums. There are John Scofield-like synthed guitar sounds over solemn funk, abstract wanderings, canny Rochford-prodded rock and Latin grooves. And French vocalist Leїla Martial’s Warm Canto, an enthralling, experimental, playful one-off, explores her palette of western and non-western sounds, and influences from Björk to Bobby McFerrin and her freethinking vocal compatriot Camille.
