By Michael J. West | Published November 2025
If ever you’ve imagined what Sonny Rollins must have sounded like, playing in solitude (between trains) on the Williamsburg Bridge, ArchMusic might be the soundtrack to those fantasies — if you adjust them down an octave or two. Multi-reedist Andrew Hadro, who specializes in low-end winds (bass clarinet, baritone and bass saxophone), made this music in not-dissimilar conditions. During the isolation of COVID (and a couple of years after) he played each night under the Cleft Ridge Span, the concrete arch bridge in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. His recordings capture not just the sound of his axes but of the resonance and reverb they created inside the arch — and how different instruments and weather conditions affected them. Read like an experiment in acoustical physics? Well, it doesn’t sound like one. Hadro piles his playing with soul, blues and intrigue, so that the sonics become not waves to be examined but atmosphere to be relished. The opening “Out There In Orbit” feels like one has stepped into a film noir, echo and drone standing in for shadow and Dutch angles. The feeling only intensifies on “Old Olmsted Steady,” “Sustainable” and “Bari de Lune,” going into overdrive when Hadro breaks out a standard like “Out Of Nowhere” or “Stella By Starlight.” He also sometimes accompanies himself with a shruti box, an Indian drone instrument that can add a faintly exotic flavor but is no less compelling. Hadro does occasionally play alto sax, most notably on “Spanning Cleft Ridge” and the closing “Voix a Vaux.” But it’s not always easy to tell within this wash of sound (and the vast range he applies to every instrument), and it’s not terribly relevant. The ambiance is the thing, and outside our own romantic dreams of jazz history, there’s no other ambiance quite like what ArchMusic generates.
