Nicolas Masson | “Renaissance”

Over the Two Decades Swiss Saxophonist Nicolas Masson’s Quartet Has Been Performing, the Players Have Developed an Intimate Musical Bond, Expressed Purely and Beautifully on Renaissance, the Group’s Second Recording for ECM

After 2018’s Travelers

Featuring Pianist Colin Vallon, Bassist Patrice Moret and Drummer Lionel Friedli

Available March 14, 2025 via ECM

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Nicolas Masson’s acquaintance with his fellow quartet travelers Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret and Lionel Friedli goes back roughly two decades – in this time the players have developed an intimate musical bond, expressed purely and beautifully on Renaissance, the group’s second recording for ECM after 2018’s Travelers. Comprised exclusively of originals by the Swiss saxophonist and one collective improvisation, the album’s spotlight shifts between contrasting moods and shapes, capturing the venturesome leader stretching his compositional muscle in evocative interplay with his colleagues.

“It’s a special album for me,” notes the Swiss saxophonist, “the tenth as a leader or co-leader. Renaissance is its title for several reasons – one of them being that it also feels like the beginning of something new in my artistic endeavor – a personal renaissance, if you will. And fortunately the music turned out exactly the way I had it in mind to begin with.”

In his review for All About Jazz, the late John Kelman called the group’s previous record “both another potential modern masterpiece for the label, and the album that should rightfully bring the same international attention that Masson and his band mates so deservingly enjoy in their native Switzerland.”

Renaissance keeps the promises made on Travelers, and at the same time expands on the formal structures of Nicolas’s earlier compositions, inducing the quartet interplay with more freedom and emphasizing the leader’s layered idiomatic reach.

The band is in a searching spirit on rubato pieces like the expressive “Tremolo” or the ambient “Tumbleweeds”, mathematical on the more cerebral cuts like the title track “Renaissance”, but always operate with a lyrical disposition at heart, as heard elsewhere on the record and with a particularly gripping melodiousness on “Anemona.”

The structures feel loser, slightly more spontaneous here than they do on Travelers – a quality that Nicolas attributes to recently having “rediscovered some of my first inspirations as a musician, when I was more into freer jazz forms. Playing with these specific musicians I realize how rich and fascinating it is to just let go a little more and concentrate on our interaction. I changed my writing to incorporate more of that freedom. That’s what makes a band special – the interaction, not so much the composition.”

A straight drumbeat paired with an immediate melody drive “Subversive Dreamers” into tuneful territory like something out of the art-rock world, whereas “Forever Gone” again highlights the inner group dynamics in rubato-time. One wouldn’t necessarily expect that classic songwriters like Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Joni Mitchell serve just as much as inspiration to Nicolas as his idol Paul Motian does – the saxophonist also counts French impressionists Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel among his more important musical influences. But this wide network of references does account for the great variety of temperaments that inhabit Renaissance.

Legato piano tapestries and hyper-active cymbal stabs dress “Practicing The Unknown” in a dreamy landscape, while Colin Vallon’s sparse key strokes take on an almost percussive quality on the mysterious “Spirits.” Colin and Nicolas, seemingly able to read each other’s minds, share a special rapport throughout the album, representative of the familiar relationship the band has established over the past twenty years (“our families barbecue together,” Nicolas grins).

“Moving On” belongs to Patrice Moret and Nicolas. The bassist and saxophonist share lyrical exchanges on this duo interlude, brief but to the point. For “Basel” Nicolas swaps out his tenor sax for the soprano, presenting a melancholy yet warm tone. The programme concludes with “Langsam”, a soft-spoken chamber piece that seems to make a statement on patience, illustrated with a number of fermata pauses, brought to expression collectively by the quartet. The album was recorded at Studios La Buissonne in Southern France.

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Nicolas Masson made his ECM debut with Third Reel – the bass-less trio featuring drummer Emanuele Maniscalco and guitarist Roberto Pianca – on their eponymous 2013 album, followed by a second recording with the same band, Many More Days (2015) – “Music far removed from the barbs; virtually removed from this world.” (Neue Züricher Zeitung)

His leader-date Travelers fronting the quartet with Colin Vallon, Patrice Moret and Lionel Friedli followed in 2018. Colin Vallon’s history with the label dates back even further, to 2011’s trio album Rruga – Patrice Moret having been part of his trio from the very beginning. Collaborative albums of Vallon’s as part of Elina Duni’s quartet followed, as well as three more trio records, Le Vent, Danse and 2024’s Samares, with music that is “very cautious, very unconventional, atmospheric and precise at the same time”, according to the Weltwoche’s Peter Rüedi.

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Nicolas Masson · Renaissance

ECM · Release Date: March 14, 2025

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