Rempis / Adasiewicz / Corsano: Dial Up

Chicago has long been a magnet for creative musicians. Louis Armstrong left New Orleans for the Windy City in 1922, and Sun Ra arrived in 1945 to begin reshaping its musical landscape. Fast-forward to the 1990s, and Chicago welcomed saxophonist Dave Rempis, who quickly became a central force in the city's improvised-music scene. After emerging in the Vandermark 5, he established his voice through numerous groups, including The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, Kuzu, Ballister, and a vast network of duo collaborations with Tashi Dorji, Frank Rosaly, Mars Williams, Tim Daisy, and many others. His deep connections stem not only from his playing but from his organisational work, curating and supporting performance series across the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, Elastic Arts, and the Umbrella and Pitchfork Music Festivals. Through this web of activity, Rempis has become both catalyst and connector, helping new music take root.

Dial Up documents an invigorating new trio: Rempis on saxophones, Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone and Chris Corsano on drums. Rempis and Adasiewicz previously joined forces in Wheelhouse with bassist Nate McBride, while Rempis and Corsano recorded as From Wolves to Whales alongside Nate Wooley and Pascal Niggenkemper. This trio emerged after Corsano's recent relocation from New York to Chicago, a move that already seems fruitful, given his recent history with Zoh Amba, Akira Sakata, John Butcher and Bill Orcutt. The music captured here comes from a short 2025 tour.

Across five fully improvised pieces, the trio works with a kind of focused, craftsmanlike intensity, shaping structures and tensions in real time. Corsano launches "Down the Path/Madness" with an off-kilter percussive barrage that pushes Rempis into the horn's upper register, while Adasiewicz builds echoing, angular patterns. Together, they twist and reshape the music with remarkable unity. The brief "Past and Present Hallucinations" charges ahead as a volatile burst of baritone saxophone, tumbling drums and chiming vibes. "Third Person" opens with Rempis' soprano emitting bird-like trills through circular breathing, soon met by Corsano's rattling textures and Adasiewicz's shimmering, percussive replies.

This instrumentation, saxophone, vibraphone, and drums, gives the trio unusual flexibility, allowing them to pivot between high-energy free jazz and more spacious, resonant sound worlds. The album's highlight, "One Dollar Cheaper," begins with a Coltrane-infused tenor invocation before Rempis steps back, letting vibes and drums generate a hypnotic pulse. When the saxophone returns, the trio has entered a kind of collective trance, moving as one through a calm yet powerful flow.

Dial Up ultimately reveals a trio discovering its own universe in real time. It is three musicians tapping into Chicago's lineage of creative improvisation while pointing boldly toward the future.