Tony Malaby. Telling this name only is a guarantee in advance that you’re going to hear wonderful music. Either playing straight-ahead or avant-garde jazz, Malaby’s distinctive mark and seal of quality will be there. Wonderful and, we might say, different from everything done before by the saxophonist. In “Novela”, we have a first: this is a reed/metal nonet, with just the piano and the drumkit in contrast with the blowing line formed by soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxes, bass clarinet, trumpet, trombone and tuba. For something completely new to him as this, Malaby opted to use old compositions already put on record. “Floating Head”, “Floral and Herbacious” and “Mother’s Love” were previously released on the album “Tamarindo”, “Warblepeck” comes from the CD with the same title, “Cosas” and “Remolino” can be found in “Sabino”. Here, those pieces gain a new life and find other configurations, thanks to the arrangements by pianist Kris Davis, Malaby’s partner for 10 years now. The participants are some of the top musicians of the New York jazz scene, namely Michael Attias, Joachim Badenhorst, Andrew Hadro, Ralph Alessi, Ben Gerstein, Dan Peck, John Hollenbeck and, of course, Tony Malaby and Davis. If you already know that each Malaby recording is a new chapter in an on-going adventure, there’s an extra reason to not miss this one: without it, you’ll loose the sequence of the story.