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The true magic in jazz and other improvised music comes from pairing the right musicians with the right musical circumstances, the variables tending to be the right material to work from and a conducive performance space. On his new recording, Live In Red Hook, bassist/composer Gui Duvignau took advantage of an ideal performance space in Brooklyn and the brilliance of two outstanding musicians that he knew would provide a performance worthy of posterity.

Duvignau was born in France and lived in Morocco as an infant. His family moved to Minas Gerais, where he spent his youth, and then São Paulo, Brazil, where he spent his teenage years. His studies led him from Paris to Portugal and, finally, to New York City, where he has been based the past six years. The lands that he has lived in and the musical cultures and influences of each have informed his musical landscape. Duvignau’s last two recordings on Sunnyside Records are ripe with tributes to his mentors and heroes, including music and/or performances by Ron Carter, Bill Frisell, Billy Drewes, and Baden Powell.

Like most musicians in New York, Duvignau is invested in the world of sessions, or the casual gathering of musicians to test new material, work on group interplay, and get to know each other musically and otherwise. New York’s vast jazz and improvisation music scenes allow for a healthy session scene which provides many with the opportunity to meet new collaborators and develop new bands and music. It also allows musicians of varied experience to mingle together and develop a rapport that might be beneficial further into their career.

It was through sessions that Duvignau met his trio partners on Live In Red Hook, pianist Jacob Sacks and drummer Nathan Ellman-bell. Both musicians are highly respected creative forces, just the right type of collaborators for an impromptu recording.

It was at the end of a concert residency at Brooklyn’s Coffey Street Studio that Duvignau decided to convene the trio. He had a feeling that this amalgamation would work as they had already developed a trio dynamic that had energized Duvignau immediately after meeting.

Rather than having a session to go over material, Duvignau provided a book of compositions that he trusted Sacks and Ellman-bell to familiarize themselves with in hopes that the performance would be fresh and inspired as they all discovered the music together. So, it was on the evenings of October 18 and 19, 2022 that the trio performed for an audience at the Coffey Street Studio.

The recording begins with Duvignau’s “Idée Fixe,” a piece that utilizes a written core cell used for a recurring rhythmic and harmonic cycle that continues throughout the piece. The bassist’s punchy “Right? Wow!” is a new take on his “Detuned for Drewes,” a simple but spirited tribute to his mentor, saxophonist Billy Drewes. The title of “Cadê” means “where?” in Portuguese. The piece involves freely played melody by Duvignau and is open for improvisatory flights.

Duvignau’s “Closing” is an older, meditative piece that is perfect for the thoughtful ensemble, while “Miniature for Drums” provides a feature for Ellman-bell to shape a dynamic shape over a melodic/harmonic loop. “One at a Time” is a contrafact of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” the tune taking the familiar harmony but slowing it down to create a much different feel. A shoutout to another mentor and friend, Ron Carter’s “Eighty-One” follows, its bluesy strains broken and reconfigured by the creative trio.

Next, the trio reimagines guitarist/composer Baden Powell’s fast samba “Deixa” as a wilting ballad. Duvignau’s classically restrained “Still Untitled” is a perfect illustration of the trio’s command of the standard jazz form, while the bassist’s “Up and Down” comes from a series of simple pieces he wrote, utilizing the pentatonic scale as a basis, and allow the performers to truly soar on their improvisations. The recording concludes with “Scriabingus,” a piece that finds a sound world between two of Duvignau’s influences, classical composer Alexander Scriabin and jazz iconoclast Charles Mingus.

For Live In Red Hook, Gui Duvignau brought two intriguing musicians, namely Jacob Sacks and Nathan Ellman-bell, to explore an eclectic collection of music. The immediacy and power of the recording highlights the fact that jazz performances come from the bandstand.