Norbert Stein Pata Trio: Planetentochter

In the ever-expanding cosmos of European free jazz, Norbert Stein's Pata Trio arrives like a meteor—compact, unpredictable and tinged with pata-physical whimsy. Recorded in late 2024 in Cologne, the album runs just under 40 minutes across six tracks, a tightly plotted interstellar voyage led by Stein's tenor saxophone, alongside pianist Uwe Oberg and drummer Jörg Fischer. This bass-less lineup feels less like a constraint than an open field, allowing the music to hover in abstraction while grounding itself in Stein's composed "patamelodies"—structured yet elusive frameworks that nod to Alfred Jarry's pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions.

The title track opens with Stein's breathy subtone threading through Oberg's pedal-soaked clusters like mist across unsettled terrain. Rather than staking firm ground, the trio appears to probe for orientation, with Fischer's cymbals sketching faint, provisional constellations. "Into the Open" fractures into Albert Ayler-like shards and high-register gusts, the group's independence hovering near the point of disassembly—each voice sounding partly attentive, partly exploratory, as if tracing separate yet intersecting paths.

For all its volatility, Planetentochter largely sidesteps the aimlessness that can undermine free-improvised settings. The free ballad "Recall" unfolds in broad, dramatic arcs, reshaping memory through hoarse inquiry and suspended quiet, while "Life in the Fireplace" glows with controlled intensity. Stein, a longtime presence in Cologne's saxophone fraternity, channels echoes of Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders without mimicry, favoring a raw, unvarnished tone—direct honks giving way to more reflective midrange passages.

This is not the relentless barrage associated with a Peter Brötzmann ensemble, and it does not seem to aim for that territory. Instead, Stein's trio suggests a different proposition: music built from interlocking, puzzle-like layers that periodically break into flurries of motion, hinting at open-ended narratives rather than insisting upon them.