As New York-based saxophonist and composer Jure Pukl enthuses, Doubtless is pretty much a family project/album – an exuberant, high-spirited double-tenor quartet with wife Melissa Aldana plus close friends Joe Sanders (double bass) and Greg Hutchinson (drums). Both saxophonists have multifarious musical interests between them – Pukl’s vibrant four-piece release, Hybrid with pianist Matija Dedi?, released last year on Whirlwind; and Aldana’s four albums as leader have garnered a raft of reviews praising her indubitable invention. Yet here is a creative circle so organically conjoined that the entire session was captured inside three hours, live in the studio in Jure Pukl’s home country of Slovenia, on the back of workshops and tour schedules. Spontaneity is key. “It’s very improvised – and every number sounds different at each gig,” says Pukl. “Joe can change things so much, including time signatures, so we have to react in the moment. But it’s great to switch the vibe – we go for it, and the audience feel it. Once we’ve checked out the pieces, we then purposely let them go; and I’ve found so much liberation in this – we all become transformers for where the music wants to take us.” It’s clearly an artistic marriage made in heaven: “I don’t know many saxophone couples who like to perform together; but with me and Melissa, it’s the opposite – it feels natural, we have a similar tenor vocabulary, and that energy unites us. So in this quartet we create harmony, counterpoint… and Joe has an amazing harmonic ability, too, alongside his and Greg’s deep sense of rhythm. There’s so much happening – the sound is incredibly full.
