The fleeting drone of a shruti box appears repeatedly throughout ‘Release and Return’, as if recalibrating Hayden Chisholm and Jonathan Crayford between each exploratory composition.

Whether in the midst of expressive abandon, or the deft precision of a melodic passage, there is a sense of total intuitive fluency to this set of piano and alto saxophone duets. “Hayden and I don’t talk much”, admits Crayford. “We simply play.” 

Both are steeped in decades of learning and performing across the globe, drawing on this deep well for an album as immediate as it is refined. A graduate of Cologne’s Musik Hochschule, Chisholm went on to study Carnatic music in Chennai, before embedding himself in the musical traditions of the Balkans. Crayford, meanwhile, spent two decades immersed in New York’s jazz scenes before working in Paris and Spain. This collaboration began life in 2020, as a vehicle to explore the tonal qualities of their two instruments. Chisholm in particular has spent many years unearthing the expressive potential found beyond equal temperament (the predominant tuning system of western classical music) through his use of microtonal saxophone fingering he terms ‘split scales’.

What emerges on ‘Release and Return’ is music characterised not just by harmonic or melodic progression, but also by the illuminating ways piano and alto sax coalesce moment to moment. On The Fall of Rain, Chisholm’s aspirated, flute-like sax glides above Crayford’s dense, shimmering piano, while in the introduction of Wright’s Way, the combination of Chisholm’s microtonal playing and Crayford’s wide chords creates a sense of vastness. Yet for all this, the album’s straightest moments serve also to remind the listener of the compositional strength of the duo, cleaving tightly to one another on the elegant, lyrical melodies of Rework and JC Ballad. 

Released by Rattle Records, ‘Release and Return’ offers much for an album of such minimal proportions, and it’s this rawness that proves so powerful. There aren’t many places to hide within such a bare setting of piano and alto sax – indeed, it’s in the lingering chords and potent silences punctuating the record that genuine intimacy and trust between the two artists can really be heard.