Night Skywriting

Jane Ira Bloom – soprano saxophone & live electronics, Jamie Saft – keyboards & electronics, Mark Dresser – bass, Bobby Previte – drums and electronic drums

After being subjected to a Kenny G Christmas album ad nauseum, the last thing you probably want to hear in January is a soprano saxophone. That is, unless it’s played by Jane Ira Bloom whose proficiency on the instrument (she has been the unchallenged winner of the Jazz Journalists Association soprano saxist award for years) is even further enhanced by her original exploratory compositions. On her latest release, Bloom adds electronic processing to the mix, creating a truly 21st-century sound world out of the time-honored sax-led quartet accompanied by keyboard, bass, and drums. Of course, it helps that she’s enlisted an all-star cast—Jamie Saft, Mark Dresser, and Bobby Previte—who are all equally adventurous composer/bandleaders in their own right. On “Night Skywriting,” the quartet navigates through textures that subtly waft between hard bop and sonorities more reminiscent of Stockhausen’s Telemusik and somehow never lose the groove. All the more impressive given the fact the entire set was recorded live in real time.

—FJO