Album: Joe Lovano - Homage

Tenor titan Joe Lovano is thrilled by how Homage has turned out. He actually told me so himself in person a few weeks ago, and his new album has a very appealing, natural, free-flowing ease.

Cincinatti-born saxophonist Lovano first met Polish pianist Marcin Wasilewski and his trio in 2009 through Tomasz Stanko. The first recording together for ECM was made in 2019, Arctic Riff. They have kept on working together since then, touring mainly in Europe. In late 2023 the Polish group joined Lovano for a week’s residency at the Village Vanguard in New York. Rather than recording live at the club, all four went off across the Hudson on the Saturday afternoon to the hallowed Rudy van Gelder studio to record this album, engineered by Maureen Sickler who was Van Gelder's assistant, and inherited the studio from van him.

 The "homage" of the title is specific: it is to Manfred Eicher – who produced the album – and to ECM. The title track was originally written for an 80^th birthday celebration of Eicher at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg in 2023, and Lovano has explained that when making this recording, “musically I shaped each tune in a way that I knew he would embrace,” and has said that he feels hugely rewarded by what Eicher has done: “he captures your sound and makes it come alive.”

 The association between Lovano and the ethos and the aesthetic of "the most beautiful sound next to silence" is indeed a long one. It goes back to 1981 when Lovano was in his late and “Psalm”, from a group led by drummer Paul Motian and including Bill Frisell who was in the same Berklee student cohort as the saxophonist. 

It is an inviting listen: the poise and gentleness of the opening track “Love in the Garden” are wonderful. “Golden Horn” is an object lesson in the creation of natural conversational flow out of a short motif, and guiding the listener through a whole range of moods. “Homage” is freer, spikier and fun, even if Lovano’s playing of gongs and wanting to commune with the drummer – he does it again in the album closer “Projection” - may take the reverential mood too far. On the other hand, Lovano’s solo saxophone musings on “Giving Thanks” are superbly thoughtful, and the sound has been wonderfully caught. I thought they could easily have gone on for longer.

Joe Lovano has found the ideal context to play with a remarkable spontaneity and freedom. His ethereally light tread here has come an almost unbelievably long way from the heavy-hitting extraversion of an album like “Solid Steps”. But this is a very good place to be. Recommended.

• Homage is released on ECM on 25 April 2025 
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