“We had performed the night before, so we set up in the round and played the tunes in the same order as on the gig.” Featured here on tenor, Doxas gave careful consideration to instrumental tone and technique in choosing Iverson and Morgan, elite improvisers whose mastery of touch can be felt deeply throughout the program. “I like the studio to feel as much like a gig as possible,” the saxophonist writes in a statement describing the session. In accordance with Doxas’ vision, You Can’t Take It With You was recorded live in the studio with no separation between the three players. On the advice of Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, who gave him the idea to start his own trio, Doxas composed at a rate of one song per month he didn’t decide upon his handpicked bandmates until he had already completed several pieces. The 12th release from the Montreal-bred, Brooklyn-based saxophonist, You Can’t Take It With You is an inspired project that took about a year to evolve through a heartfelt, deliberate process that ultimately yielded a truly personal work of art. Richards may have sought to avoid letting her gender be the focus of how her music is seen and considered, but, in steering into it as a result of her at-the-time unborn daughter, she arrived at an approach, and an album, so strong and innovative that the end results settle any question.Ĭhet Doxas composed 10 tunes, wrote extensive liner notes and crafted an original sculpture (see cover image) for this intimate new trio album with pianist Ethan Iverson and upright bassist Thomas Morgan. But whether underwater or not, Richards’ playing is striking. On “Sacred Sea,” Richards ruminatively taps out single notes while White responds on prepared piano before Richards goes back underwater, her horn sounding like it’s drowning.
A more startling example of the approach can be heard on “Amphitrite,” which means the goddess of the sea and sounds like someone manipulating a tub of water with an otherworldly straw. “Anza,” named for her daughter, features a recording of the unborn child’s breath as Richards’ trumpet burbles, whisperingly, to her. Resonating water vessels? Richards has been refining the technique of playing her trumpet in water since 2008, and does so throughout Zephyr. Richards, meanwhile, plays trumpet, flugelhorn and resonating water vessels. Richards is backed by Joshua White on piano, preparations and percussion. The personnel listings themselves tell the tale. This shaped the concise, visceral album both in concept and in practice, leading Richards to explore a more immediate connection between her body and her work. But when she went into the studio to record Zephyr, her new album, in 2019, Richards was six-and-a-half months pregnant. Avant-garde trumpeter, composer and bandleader Steph Richards has made it a priority throughout her career for her work to be seen on its own terms, rather than through the lens of her gender.
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