| Jazz |
Our new partner, Hubtone PR, mirrors something of our own identity: a bridge linking Europe and North America. Few projects illustrate this better than So We Could Live, the latest creation from bassist and composer Zack Lober. Known to many through his collaborations with Jamie Baum and other forward-looking artists, Lober now presents a work that situates itself at the crossroads of tradition and experimentation.
What we encounter here is jazz without fear, jazz that can move with ease between the familiar pulse of classic forms and the wide-open explorations of free improvisation. The result is an ensemble sound built on intricate architecture yet always accessible, performed by a quartet whose brilliance lies not in excess but in the elegance of restraint.
Lober’s career has been as mobile as his music. Born in Montreal, he went on to establish himself in New York and Boston before settling in the Netherlands, where he continues to weave transatlantic connections. His résumé is impressive: co-founder of the critically acclaimed group The Story; leader of The Ancestry Project, an ambitious fusion of music and video that integrates his work on turntables; and co-leader of Landline, a collective quartet with Chet Doxas, Jacob Sacks, and Vinnie Sperrazza. More recently, his Dutch trio NO FILL3R, formed with drummer Sun-Mi Hong and trumpeter Suzan Veneman, has drawn critical notice. Their upcoming second album, slated for release on October 3, 2025, expands the group’s horizons by welcoming the legendary saxophonist Jasper Blom. Lober, who holds a master’s degree from the Manhattan School of Music, has also embraced teaching and mentoring as essential parts of his career, furthering his role as both performer and pedagogue.
Equally striking is the breadth of his musical curiosity. Lober has never confined himself to the jazz idiom; he has ventured into rock and pop, recording and performing with Caro Emerald, Zach Williams of The Lone Bellow, Jessica Williams (Girls), The Swingle Singers, Emma Frank, Alejandra Ribera, Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), as well as Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy of The Cult. Each collaboration adds another layer to his sensibility, reflecting a musician attuned to the possibilities of dialogue across genres.
For So We Could Live, Lober assembles a cast of musicians who embody this same openness. At the heart of the project is Jasper Blom, whose tenor and soprano saxophones shape the album’s identity as much as Lober’s bass. Already present on the previous NO FILL3R release, Blom now takes a central role. He is a commanding figure in Dutch jazz, honored with the Boy Edgar Prize in 2019, the Netherlands’ most prestigious award for jazz and improvised music, and admired for his extraordinary versatility. His collaborations with Lee Konitz, Chet Baker, Nat Adderley, Bob Brookmeyer, George Duke, Randy Crawford, David Liebman, Conrad Herwig, and many others have established him as one of the defining voices of the Benelux scene. His playing on this project is less an addition than a force of gravity, anchoring and inspiring the ensemble.
One hears it most clearly in the way the group shapes its sound. The arrangements are carefully constructed, yet they leave ample room for personality and dialogue. Trumpeter Suzan Veneman stands out with a tone that seems to trace the lineage of Chet Baker, delicate, lyrical, but never imitative. Her contribution feels not like homage but as if she is channeling a living tradition into a contemporary vocabulary. Together with drummer Sun-Mi Hong, whose rhythmic sensibility balances precision with openness, the quartet produces a sound that is unmistakably modern, urban, and intellectually charged while still grounded in emotional resonance.
Listening to So We Could Live can feel like leafing through a book of jazz history, one whose pages are constantly being rewritten. Echoes of New York are everywhere: in the grit of the improvisations, the restless drive of the group’s interplay, the constant reinvention of material. And yet, this is also a European project through and through, shaped by the Dutch and broader continental jazz scenes where boundaries between tradition and experiment are porous, and where musicians see no contradiction in drawing from multiple lineages at once.
What emerges is not simply an album but a statement of intent. Lober and his collaborators are less interested in defining a genre than in exploring what form means in the 21st century. Theirs is jazz that absorbs the past but refuses nostalgia, music that insists on being both here and now while imagining what comes next.
So We Could Live embodies the paradox at the heart of jazz itself: it is history in motion, a living archive that refuses to sit still.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, August 27th 2025
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Musicians :
Zack Lober, Bass
Jasper Blom, tenor sax
Suzan Veneman, Trumpet
Sun-Mi Hong, drums
Track Listing :
So We Could Live
Is an Expression
Of Gratitude
My Father
And a Celebration
What it Means
Live a Life
Of Sacrifice and Service