Chet Doxas - You Can’t Take It With You LP (MARKDOWN)

Juno-winning saxophonist Chet Doxas is a guiding voice in the world of creative improvised music. Doxas, co-leader of Riverside with trumpeter Dave Douglas and a respected collaborator of Carla Bley and Paul Bley, joins Whirlwind for ‘You Can’t Take It With You’, his ninth album as a leader and first at the head of a trio. He’s joined by two stand-out collaborators - Ethan Iverson (piano) and Thomas Morgan (bass) - for a meticulously constructed album with playful positivity at its heart. Both the inspiration and the encouragement to put this album together can be traced back to Carla Bley. Jimmy Giuffre’s trio was a big influence on Doxas - “the way he shapes and articulates is one of a kind - and the group regularly featured Bley’s music. An early-morning airport transfer saw Doxas discussing future plans with Bley and Steve Swallow, who advised Doxas to write “one song a month”, distraction-free for a year. The ten tracks on the album represent a year spent writing and closely editing his compositions. That process gradually revealed his trio, selected for their personal sensibilities as much as their outstanding technical capabilities. “Ethan and Thomas’s tones are very inspiring. I wanted to let myself be guided by their sound palettes, and focus on phrasing in a way that's a little more multidimensional.”