[Cover photo credit to Karolina Wielocha]

Gary Bartz has teamed up with Your Brother’s Keeper to release collaborative album, Where Rivers Meet, out now through Brownswood Recordings on limited edition “River Blue” vinyl, black vinyl and CD.

Developed through several years of performing, touring and recording together, the album “documents a shared approach built on improvisation, listening and collective exploration.” 

The album places Bartz’s saxophone within a contemporary sonic setting shaped by modular synthesis, electronics and acoustic instrumentation. At times, his playing is processed live through modular systems, creating a dialogue between the language of Jazz and other sounds and textures. 

Jake Long, founder of Your Brother’s Keeper, says:

When we first began exploring music for a new album while Gary was in London, we arranged to have a playing and writing session in the basement of my old studio in Woolwich. The band had arrived early to get everything ready, so by the time Gary walked in there was already a microphone patched through the modular system. Within moments Gary had his saxophone out and began playing. As he explored and reacted to the cascading granular delays and pitch-shifted sounds coming from the modular, it was clear that this was the direction the record should take.

At the centre of the project is Bartz, whose career spans more than five decades and includes collaborations with Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Max Roach and Art Blakey.

Where Rivers Meet also introduces Your Brother’s Keeper, a new collective assembled by Long and featuring Ali MacSween (piano, synthesizers and modular FX), Axel Kaner-Lidstrom (trumpet), Twm Dylan (double bass), Tim Doyle (percussion) and Chelsea Carmichael (tenor saxophone).

The new album “focuses on what can happen when musicians from different generations meet with the freedom to explore, respond and create together.”