Sam Norris: Wood/Gold - Solo Saxophone Volume 1

This is music where you need to embrace the journey, not the destination: The music might not have a clear beginning, middle, and end in the traditional sense; enjoying the moment-to-moment unfolding of sounds and ideas is the purpose.

Sometimes the act of listening to a saxophone is rewarded because the musician wants to play notes to express some ideas.  Rarer is listening to a player because they are in love with the instrument in an almost sensuous way, almost having an affair. The sounds are almost private, overheard love whispers fragmented, almost covert. The room's acoustics, another voice, allow sound to emerge and dissolve.  The sounds can be emotive, joyous, frantic, or melancholic. The meditative interaction with the acoustic is compelling.

:"My materials are definitely tone/timbre first-the tone colour, harmonics, multiphonics, the proportion of air in the sound," Sam Norriss explains. "I also have particular linguistic tropes that I come back to, mining them deeper each time. Most of them are abstractions of bebop or patternistic language, frequently expanded across the whole range of the instrument. They are based on years of thorough research of jazz of the 40s, 50s and 60s. The concept of rate also fascinates me-the ability to morph music gradually, like Steve Reich, or to cycle rapidly through different formulations, creating tension and complexity, like Charlie Parker."

The most lyrical of the tracks is "BeGreen." At times, it threatens to evolve into a Lee Konitz solo in its beauty and purity.  The title expresses homage to Bunky Green. The improvisation is gentle at first.  Good to hear the soft clicking of the saxophone keys as Norris riffles through the notes.  The recording is satisfactorily close.

In "Ritual," there are repetitive figures with subtle variations.  It is all played with a beautiful tone.  The pure tone is discarded occasionally to explore depth and high pitch..

 An exploratory track "Ia 1" varies the tone, moving from soothing to harsh, moving from angular sound to piercing tones.  The acoustics are important as the improvisation moves from one idea to another, reverberating against the acoustic.  It is difficult to relate the sounds here to the legend of the saint who floated across the sea to Saint Ives from Ireland. Giving a definite title to music like this tends to tie in the imagination of the listener to the title rather than leaving them free to conjecture.

"Sec," French for 'dry,'  foregrounds the instrument's mechanical qualities within a stark acoustic. The repetitive figures are repeated at different levels.

Opening with a skipping figure, "Filigree" almost creates a counterpoint, a delightful piece as the urgent figures almost evolve into a melody.  Using headphones, the reverberations rattle around the head as the intensity increases.  As the path through the track changes, the multiphonics increase in complexity as the track mellows into a conclusion 

"Ia 11" A strident note increases and then builds.  Is there meaning to the relationship to the saint, or is it an homage to the acoustic as the music gains a serrated edge?

Sam Norris notes: "For me, wood/gold represents the temporal extremes. The saxophone being a wooden instrument made of brass.  There's this contradiction in the materials that is inherent within the instrument.  You can get these woody reedy qualities, almost like a clarinet, and then the other extreme, there is a metallic, brassy, brash sound."

It is difficult not to be drawn into the obvious delight that Norris feels about his saxophone and the sounds that it can produce. At times, there is something primitive about the obvious pleasure he enjoys.  He is not intent on making melodic shapes but on exploring the complexity and variety of sounds.

The solo saxophone has an honourable tradition: the exploration of the sonics, the multiphonics, the extended techniques and the timbre: Anthony Braxton, Lee Konitz, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins,  Steve Lacy and Eric Dolphy.

Norris studied at the Royal Academy of Music on a scholarship under Julian Siegel, Stan Sulzmann and Kit Downes, graduating in 2021 with first-class honours. PHEMO Quartet, a band he co-leads, recently placed second at the historic annual Burghausen European Jazz Competition (2026); in addition, he is the recipient of the Craig Ball prize for jazz saxophone, and was a finalist in the Musicians' Company 'Young Jazz Musician of the Year' competition in 2022.