Tony Malaby’s Sabino
The Cave of Winds
Pyroclastic Records
A lot of people reacted to our ongoing pandemic by hunkering down and turning inward. Since the plague began, we’ve been getting a lot of introspective solo works and home recordings. That’s given us a lot of cool art, but not everyone is temperamentally suited to solitude. Tony Malaby is a jazz saxophonist who thrives on the in-the-moment spontaneity of live performance. With tours cancelled and clubs closed, Malaby literally took his music to the streets. Specifically, he took his core trio down to an overpass and set up under the New Jersey Turnpike. Malaby invited friends to join him jamming under the bridge to play for their lives.
The Cave of Winds is what Malaby called his sanctuary under the bridge. The music on his new album was inspired by those sessions playing with passing cars and trucks rumbling overhead. Tony enlisted guitarist Ben Monder to bring the right kind of grit to the proceedings. The seven songs on this album are raw, free jams blowing off the pent up cabin fever we’ve all been feeling. A friend of mine used to say that really wild improvisation would peel the paint off the walls. Well, Tony’s music is trying to kill off a virus.
