Saxophonist, clarinetist and shakuhachi flutist Ned Rothenberg. violinist Mark Feldman, and his wife pianist Sylvie Courvoisier are old musical friends and collaborators but this is their first trio recording. So the ground is seeded, but don’t let the solidity shown by the music from “In Cahoots” fool you: as a principle, they try to take their creativity further, exploring new ideas and new solutions. Nothing is obvious in these improvisations.  Rothenberg has a very personal approach to the jazz tradition (and not only that – his shakuhachi is steeped in Japanese ancestral music), Feldman comes from folk and you feel that in his violin motives, and Courvoisier uses the European classical vocabulary to sublime effect. The mix of these individual characteristics results in something unique and especially beautiful, giving a different – and better – meaning to the word “virtuosity”. It’s not a question of technical exhibitionism anymore, but of surpassing the physical limitations of their respective instruments. In that, they’re absolute masters, and this means we have here a CD not to be missed. Who said everything was done already, and we’re condemned to variations of the same things? Well, someone who didn’t hear this yet. Give it to him or her.

All Music by Courvoisier/Feldman/Rothenberg (ASCAP)

Recorded by Jeremiah Cymerman at Studio Lulu, Brooklyn NY on June 17th, 2014 | Edited and mixed by Ned Rothenberg and Mark Feldman | Mastered by Luis Delgado
Produced by Ned Rothenberg | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos