The New Quartet of legendary British free jazz and free improvisation sax player Paul Dunmall features two old comrades – double bass player Dave Kane, who has worked with Dunmall since 2005, and drummer Miles Davis, who has worked with Dunamll for more than 15 years (and is the son of late drummer Tony Levin who also played with Dunmall) with young guitarist Steven Saunders, who joined Dunamll’s bands only in 2020. The New Quartet was recorded at Sansom Studios in Birmingham in December 2021. Dunamll also did the wood engraving on the cover.

Dunamll wanted to organize this New Quartet of musicians that were driven by an underlying pulse and central energy, and always appreciated the driving, uplifting energy of jazz. The New Quartet is based on and inspired by Kane, Kevin and Saunders’ previous improvisational performances. World Without is the debut recording of the quartet and it already sounds like an organic and powerful unit.

World Without offers two extended and collective improvisations that gravitate into instant compositions. The first piece «The Beauty In You» is led by the energetic playing of Dunamll and his endless flow of melodic ideas, intensified by the percolating rhythm section of Kane and Levin and the thorny guitar lines of Saunders. All four musicians feed equally this fiery kind of fiery dynamics but mid-piece Dunamll shifts into a contemplative and poetic mode, resonated beautifully by the like-minded, sparse yet precise ideas of Saunders, Kane and Levin, and then they all build the cathartic, rhythmic crescendo. The second, title piece begins with a more introspective spirit and more conversational dynamics, with more room for individual solos, but slowly gains more power and volition. This beautiful piece stresses, again, the close affinity and the immediate rapport of Dunamll and Saunders, Kane and Levin.

Eyal Hareuveni

Paul Dunmall (tenor saxophone, alto saxophones), Steven Saunders (guitar), Dave Kane (double bass), Miles Levin (drums)