Nicolas Masson soprano and tenor saxophones Colin Vallon piano Patrice Moret double bass Lionel Friedli drums Recorded November 2023 at Studios La Buissonne Engineer: Gérard de Haro Mastering: Nicolas Baillard Cover photo: Nicolas Masson An ECM Production Release date: March 14, 2025
A quiet sparkle, a pebble thrown into the water, and a band that regards every ripple with their art—so begins “Tremolo,” the first of 10 new tunes from saxophonist Nicolas Masson. With partners Colin Vallon on piano, Patrice Moret on double bass, and Lionel Friedli on drums, he crafts melodic prose poetry that opens its borders to the freedom of in-the-moment interpretation. His tenor has the quality of a dream struggling to maintain its form in the face of impending wakefulness. The tension between the two is where so much of this music lives: at once allied with the night while yearning for daybreak. Stretching its neck from the opposite direction is the title track. Speaking as much in the idiomatic language of feet that walk as in that of hands that create, it conveys its autobiography in linked verse. All the more appropriate that his previous album with these fine musicians should be called Travelers, for they all contribute their own stamps to this passport.
What makes the group’s interplay so endearing is the grace of their seeking spirit. In “Anemona,” for instance, they give themselves to the flow of Masson’s organic writing selflessly and not without a significant quotient of charm that lets childlike impulses come to the fore. In “Tumbleweeds,” the free improvisational bonus that follows, we encounter the deepest expression of their atmospheric capabilities. Like the equally brief “Moving On,” which finds Masson and Moret duetting in the half-light, it embraces uncertainty. That said, even in the more artful punctuations of “Subversive Dreamers” (a highlight for its under-the-skin them), we are never coerced into experiencing something outside the realm of lived experience. Such comforts are harder to come by in a world caged by division. And how can one not feel like a messenger bird with a broken wing, mended and set free by the soprano saxophone-driven “Forever Gone”? Tied to our foot is the message ciphered in “Practicing The Unknown,” where hope reigns. At the risk of belaboring the analogy, I wonder whether “Basel” isn’t the terminus of our flight. Its percussive tracery, soaring piano, and unforced sopranism show us the quartet’s heart.
If all the above is the body, then “Spirits” is the blood working its way through the veins. But despite the intimations of kinetic energy that it whispers, it all points to the conclusion in “Langsam,” which challenges the listener to find a better word to describe the mood of what we’ve just experienced.
When listening to Renaissance, it becomes obvious why songs on an album are called “tracks.” It’s because each leaves something physical that we can touch and follow, knowing the journey will be its own reward.
Nicolas Masson tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet Colin Vallon piano Patrice Moret double bass Lionel Friedli drums
Recorded April 2017, Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI, Lugano
Engineer: Lara Persia
Produced by Manfred Eicher
Release date: February 16, 2018
If the blood ties between jazz and beauty were ever in doubt, one would need only spin Travelers to restore faith in that very principle. Swiss reed player Nicolas Masson’s quartet is more than a plush setting for nine original compositions; it’s a veritable life in miniature with its own triumphs and stumbles. One could hardly imagine a more stunning outfit to don while walking down these hallowed halls. Along with pianist Colin Vallon, a formidable bandleader in his own right, Masson joins bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Lionel Friedli for a journey that is equal parts introversion and extroversion. This isn’t some ad hoc studio creation, however. It’s a band 12 years strong. I asked Masson via email what it meant for him to submit such a mature quartet to the engineering scalpel:
“We had already released an album named Thirty Six Ghosts in 2009 on Clean Feed Records but our music had changed quite a lot since and it felt like the right time to document the band at this moment of its evolution. The fact that we have such a long history together helped us get straight to the point in the studio.”
And how, I wondered, did the band come together?
“I was working at the time with my first band, featuring Russ Johnson on trumpet, Eivind Opsvik on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. I wanted to have a band in Switzerland as well (I had just moved back from New York) and was also exploring different styles of music which required a different sound. So I started the band with Patrice Moret, Lionel Friedli, and a guitar player that was soon to be replaced by Colin Vallon on Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos. To me they were the best musicians available in the country for the music I had in mind, and they still are! But more than that—and most important in the end—is our connection on a human level. I feel like we grew up as a band at the same time as we grew up as human beings, and we became that unit. It’s as if the musical concept was replaced over time by the band itself.”
This band-as-bond aesthetic is easily perceptible in the set’s opener, “Gagarine.” In its constantly shifting air currents, the saxophone feels like an extension of itself, sustained by song. This feeling is magnified in “Fuchsia,” wherein synesthetic pleasures unfold with a welcoming combination of precision and freedom. Vallon is a wonder here, his every note the reflection of Masson’s shimmering moonlight.
If descriptions of this music lend themselves so effortlessly to visual analogues, that is perhaps because Masson is also an accomplished photographer. One of his images, in fact, adorns the cover of this album, in addition to a handful of other ECM sleeves.
“Photography always occupied a very important place in my life, a passion surpassed only by music. At one point, I never went to a concert without my camera. It helped me understand music on a different level, through a different prism. At first I wasn’t really familiar with the musicians I was photographing: Randy Weston, The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Archie Shepp, Dewey Redman, The World Saxophone Quartet, John Zorn, Tim Berne, Miles Davis (yes!)…and it helped me get intimate with the making of the music. I was observing each of their movements, each eye contact, each interaction happening through my lens, while I was intensely listening. Then I felt I needed to make a choice between music and photography, so at 19 years old I boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway in Moscow and spent almost six months in Asia, taking as many images as possible. These long months away from music were fantastic, but I missed my saxophone too much, so I took a flight from Singapore to Geneva, grabbed my horn, and left for New York City! Over time music and photography became inseparable from each other. I need photography to feed my musical imagination and my musical experiences to guide my eye when I’m away from my instrument. Sometimes I like to think that I hear images and see sounds. Now regarding ECM, it also makes total sense to me since so much care is given to the visual side of any of their productions. It has to be a complete experience.”
Said completeness is made possible by Masson’s attentive bandmates, each of whom brings polishes his own facet of a holistic jewel, and for whom he has written compositions with particular souls in mind. There’s the painterly journey of “The Deep,” which dedicatee Friedli renders a beautiful struggle against the passage of time, and “Wood,” for Moret. The latter’s abstract yet rooted turns are indicative of the bassist’s oceanic sensibilities. Vallon, for his part, is a color mixer and blender whose palette exceeds the bounds of its own habitation, especially in the title track, a masterful duet with its composer. Each of these trusted friends nurtures Masson’s themes as seeds of unexpected growth. The saxophonist himself digs into deepest emotional reserves on “Philae,” a touchstone for its superbly articulated tenor, piecing together a landscape of monochromatic integrity.
To my ears, this music is deeply connected to memory. Masson agrees:
“I do rely on memories to find inspiration: visual, aural, olfactive, light, shapes, past experiences, sensations of places I’ve been to, people I’ve known, and so forth. I’m not exactly sure why, but it’s true that when I write music, most of the time a reminiscence is at the root. Maybe that’s common with people who have lived through indelible experiences early on in their lives.”
In these respects, both “Almost Forty” and “Blurred” seem to play with the idea of recollection and its way of filling in the gaps when reality cannot quite fully be captured. The first of these is a tender ballad that pushes the blood flow of Friedli’s cymbals through Moret’s thick arteries as the life force behind Vallon’s transformation of the keyboard into canvas, while the second finds the clarinet paving the way for a softer landing.
Such clarity of storytelling makes ECM an ideal home for this band, as in the nocturnal shading of “Jura.” It’s a solemn yet trustworthy way to end the day, kissing the present moment goodbye to welcome slumber. Says Masson of working with producer Manfred Eicher in this context:
“It’s such a privilege to let someone so uniquely gifted and experienced tell us if we’re going in the right direction or if we should try to expose things differently. It feels like working with one of the greatest filmmakers. You bring the story, the dialogues, and the actors, and he takes you on location, brings the cameramen, the lights, the right lenses and cameras, and offers his vision to help you realize your project. He keeps you on the right track and isn’t afraid to tell you when you’ve overplayed something. I feel very fortunate to have had the privilege to work with him, I am certainly looking forward to next occasion.”
Between Sound and Space: ECM Records and Beyond 