MALABY / DUMOULIN / BER
Tony Malaby (Charlie Haden’s Liberation Orchestra, Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, Mark Helias’ Open Loose, Fred Hersch, Tim Berne, Kris Davis), Jozef Dumoulin (Lidlboj, Octurn, The Red Hill Orchestra with Dan Weiss & Ellery Eskelin, Plug & Pray with Benoît Delbecq) and Samuel Ber (KARTET, Pentadox, Benoît Delbecq & The Multiplexers, Michael Attias, Bo Van Der Werf Mantra Magnets, Soet Kempeneer Trio) explore a music made of flow, pulses, textures, angles, memory, rotations, distances, intentions, proliferations, territories, speeds, changes of scale, and intervals. Their taste for playfulness pushes them to redefine the music at every moment, which is reflected in the recording process of their new album: Trees on Wheels.
This new album was recorded at three different locations: at the music festival Jazzdor in Strasbourg, in a studio and at a private venue, both in Paris.
“The concert in Paris wasn’t supposed to be recorded, but an hour before it started, my intuition told me that I should ask a friend to bring a recorder, so I did. The other recordings were done professionally, so the third one has a different sound color and quality. I had a lot of fun editing them together, switching between the three sources and manipulating the sound a tiny bit. I think my approach was more closely related to movie editing, concerning the overall structure”, says Samuel Ber, who composed all the tracks.
With confidence, openness and patience, the trio navigates through composed and improvised sections. The result has the dynamic of a never-ending stream of consciousness, as a reviewer at the Klaeng Festival wrote in March of 2024.
Their first album, Maps & Synecdoches, was released in 2018 to raving reviews. With their second album, dubbed Trees on Wheels, the trio builds on the foundations, the ideas and creative processes laid out by the first outing. This album will be released in June of 2025.
“Built around Ber’s compositions and seamlessly blended with moments of collective improvisation, the trio conjured a series of organic musical sensations—perfect for quiet reflection, or at the very least, a kind of melodic meditation. From this emerged soundscapes tied to rivers, to the infinitesimal flow of time suddenly freed from its usual constraints. The music’s understated density didn’t stop me from feeling, with crystalline clarity, the multitude of sparkles that elevated their message.”
– Culture Jazz live review, 19.03.2025
“Ber is an incredibly present drummer – in the best sense of the word – and has a penchant for angular rhythms. But he often forms an inseparable tandem with Dumoulin to showcase their preference for steamingly hot music. In this environment, Malaby blows fragile and intense notes, without forgoing coarser and unpolished moments.”
– Draai om je oren
“The first concert of this trio, a first meeting for the 3 improvisers, planned as a one shot at the former Brussels jazz club Bravo in November 2015, finally revealed its nature as a synecdoche: the starting point of a long-term creative collaboration whose first album “Maps & Synecdoches” presents the music “of what is undoubtedly a leading trio”
– De Standaard
Tony Malaby (US) – Tenor Saxophone
Jozef Dumoulin (BE/FR) – Keys
Samuel Ber (BE/FR) – Drums
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