Larry Ochs, Joe Morris, Charles Downs

This is the first to be released of a series of albums ESP started recording in 2023 combining artists who hadn't worked together before. In this case, we team saxophonist Larry Ochs with the Flow Trio rhythm section of drummer Charles Downs and bassist Joe Morris. They meshed magnificently on their first encounter!

Larry Ochs, co-founder in 1977 of ROVA Saxophone Quartet, was born in New York City but has long been based on the West Coast, specifically the Bay Area. He has also been a member of the Glenn Spearman Double Trio, Maybe Monday, the John Lindberg Ensemble, What We Live, The International Creative Music Orchestra, and Room, along with many other collaborations. ESP-Disk’ has previously released albums featuring Ochs by ROVA, Jones Jones, and his duo with Donald Robinson.

Joe Morris, guitarist and bassist, studied with ESP-Disk’ legend Lowell Davidson. Morris formed his first trio in 1977 and began his recording career in 1983, with well over 50 albums as a leader and many more as a collaborator, including albums on ESP-Disk’ under his own name and with Flow Trio and Fay Victor’s SoundNoiseFUNK—and a guitar duo with Elliott Sharp due later this year. He’s also the author of the crucial book Perpetual Frontier / The Properties of Free Music and on the New England Conservatory faculty.

Charles Downs, the senior member of the trio, is also known to jazz aficionados as Rashid Bakr, the performing name he used while drumming in various Cecil Taylor groups and elsewhere. He’s also been in groups including Ensemble Muntu, Other Dimensions in Music, Flow Trio, and What You May Call It, and has recorded with Billy Bang, Glenn Spearman, Jamie Saft, Ras Moshe Burnett, William Parker, Arthur Doyle, Sabir Mateen, Joe McPhee, and many more. Around the time this album was recorded, ESP also teamed him with violist Melanie Dyer and pianist Megumi Yonezawa, so look for that sometime in the future.