Josephine Davies: Satori: Weatherwards

From an international perspective, the best kept secret in British jazz could be tenor and soprano saxophonist Josephine Davies. She first recorded in 2000 as a member of Crissy Lee's Jazz Orchestra, a fifteen piece all-woman band who made one album, the self-produced ...With Body And Soul. (Actually, there was one male in the lineup, trumpeter Craig Wild, and the joke in the boys' club that British jazz pretty much still was at the time, was that he had the best job in the music business.) Davies went on to make two albums under her own name, Elation (EMI, 2006) and Perspective (Trio, 2010), leading quintets in which she shared the frontline with a trumpeter and recorded almost entirely her own compositions.

Davies then became deeply involved with psychotherapy and Japanese philosophy and did not come ashore again until 2016, when she formed her Satori trio with drummer Paul Clarvis and bassist Dave Whitford. The group debuted with Satori (Whirlwind, 2017). James Maddren then replaced Clarvis and the new lineup has recorded three albums: In The Corners Of Clouds (Whirlwind, 2018), Satori: How Can We Wake? (Whirlwind, 2020) and 2024's Satori: Weatherwards. The material on all four albums consists wholly of Davies originals.

An elegant and lyrical composer and improviser, with a ruggedly beautiful tenor sound that makes liberal use of vocalisation, Davies' trio is primarily concerned with group improvisation. In an interview with All About Jazz in 2020 (which can be read here), Davies said of the recently released Satori: How Can We Wake?: "The process, since we started Satori, has been one of trusting the music, trusting each other and, for me, trusting myself enough to let go of the need for a sense of direction. It's about trusting the process rather than thinking about what should happen. This album is definitely more evolved in terms of us knowing it doesn't really matter what happens: let's just play and let's have fun."

This sense of mutual trust is evident again on Satori: Weatherwards. Also to the fore is the wild weather of the Shetland Isles, an archipelago to the north east of mainland Scotland, where Davies was born and brought up and whose "windswept edges" Davies says inspired the music for this album. Indeed, her saxophone frequently sounds as though it is dancing on the crests of the waves that come crashing ashore. (During the pandemic, Davies relocated from London to Hastings, a town on Britain's south coast, where she became an enthusiastic all-weather swimmer. The sea runs deep in her psyche.)

Satori: Weatherwards is the first Satori album to include a chordal instrument, played by guest pianist Alcyona Mick, who is heard on half the tracks. Mick plays a supportive, unobtrusive role which does not curtail the trio's harmonic freedom but adds to the allure of what is one of the most engaging albums of the year.

At the time of writing, no YouTube from the album is available. The footage below was released alongside 2020's Satori: How Can We Wake? .