By Michael J. West | Published June 2026
That the musicians on this new recording from Joe Lovano can maintain such exquisite sensitivity in their interactions, even while all four of them are practically bursting with creative energy, tells what kind of mastery we’re dealing with here. But don’t confuse sensitivity with softness. Paramount Quartet comprises tenor/soprano saxophonist Lovano, guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Asante Santi Debriano and drummer Will Calhoun, none of whom are whisperers. Most of the album finds them driving, asserting, grooving, even — as on “Amsterdam” and “The Great Outdoors” — pushing into free territory.
On the set’s three ballads, where the players do don kid gloves, we can still hear the ideas coming fast and furious. If the texture of the accurately titled opening “First Song” is finery, Lovano’s silken tenor over Lage and Debriano’s lace and Calhoun’s brushed gold leaf, the saxophonist still manages to percolate, having so much to say that he has to double-time it (though with such acuity that one barely notices). Similarly, on “Lady Day,” Lage lays down with microscopic precision lines that gradually develop into stinging, but fragile and melodic, barbs.
The sensitivity at issue, however, is in their abilities to detect, examine and respond to each other’s finenesses. “Fanfare For Unity” features short bursts of collective, polyrhythmic improv in between leitmotifs; that’s all it needs. So attuned are these musicians that Calhoun can sketch out a quick rhythmic phrase; Lage and Debriano can grab and melodize it in unison and without hesitation; and Lovano can invert and extend it before they’ve even finished it. On the soul groover “Congregation,” Calhoun seems to anticipate Lovano’s every solo shape; when Lage’s solo follows the saxophonist, Debriano shares a similar telepathy with him. It’s listening that thus becomes the paramount part of Paramount Quartet.
