Plenty of saxophonists learning the game in the 1950s made John Coltrane their lodestar for his famous ferment of spiritual gravitas and storming improv intensity – but his best disciples took that sound as a call to freedom, not idolatry. The modestly masterful Kent-born saxophonist Paul Dunmall reveres Coltrane’s emotional eloquence to this day, but has also been profoundly affected by the very different, ’trane-influenced digressions of his UK sax contemporaries John Surman and Evan Parker: Surman’s lyrical affection for global folk musics, Parker’s contrasting drive toward a powerful jazz language independent of conventional tonality and form. The open imagination of UK improv-piano genius Keith Tippett, a longtime playing partner, has also been a gamechanger.
