Nathan Hanson / Steve Hirsh: Memory Is Subjective

It goes without saying that memory is subjective. Saxophonist Nathan Hanson and drummer Steve Hirsh might tell you that, apart from the experience of attending their October 2025 live performance at the 210 Gallery & Art Center in Sandstone, Minnesota, encountering the resulting recording is an entirely different affair. They would be right. Yet Memory Is Subjective is so sincere, and so expertly recorded and mixed, that the listener is placed almost directly within the audience's sound space, experiencing something of the immediacy of the original performance.

Listeners should set aside their preconceived notions about what a saxophone-and-drums duo ought to sound like. Those expecting something along the lines of John Coltrane and Rashied Ali, Paul Flaherty and Chris Corsano, or Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey are in for a revelation. The familiar push-and-pull, the competitive scuffle that often characterizes this format, is largely absent. While intense pressure may make a diamond, Hanson and Hirsh take a different approach, favoring an unperturbed cooperation.

Unperturbed, but by no means unemotional. Throughout the three tracks, Hanson and Hirsh negotiate a mostly non-adversarial musical terrain, following similar paths while allowing each performance to develop its own character. Hanson plays soprano saxophone on "Memory Is Subjective I," switching to tenor for the remaining tracks. Hirsh, meanwhile, seems to intuitively find the appropriate pulse for each situation. In other settings, such as his work with free jazz pianist Joel Futterman, he responds to the energy around him with equal intensity. Here, as Hanson's compatriot, he takes a more complementary role, accentuating the journey rather than challenging its direction.

The result is less a debate than a discourse, less a contest than a conversation. Hanson and Hirsh leave space for one another, allowing gestures to be extended, answered and gently redirected. There is intensity, but it comes from concentration rather than confrontation.

Memory Is Subjective ultimately demonstrates that a saxophone-and-drums duo does not need to be combative to be compelling. Hanson and Hirsh find tension in attentiveness and momentum in restraint. What emerges is a recording that feels less like a battle for sonic territory than two musicians moving through the same landscape, reshaping the journey together.