| Jazz |
The first sound is not a melody but a pulse, elastic, slightly unsettled, already hinting that the ground beneath it may shift. When saxophonist and composer Chris Madsen enters, he does not so much state a theme as test the architecture of rhythm itself. From the opening seconds of Threefold, the listener senses that this is music built on tension: between propulsion and rupture, between swing and something more angular, between tradition and reinvention.
Rhythm here is not accompaniment. It is argument.
Madsen’s language draws from post-bop and fusion, but the familiar markers are subtly destabilized. A groove establishes itself, only to tilt a few degrees off-center. The ear leans forward, waiting for the slip. In several passages, particularly midway through the title track, the bass fractures the meter with a displaced accent before the saxophone answers with a phrase that deliberately avoids resolution. The effect is not chaos but recalibration, a reminder that forward motion can take many shapes.
The trio’s origins are distinctly contemporary. What began as a series of social media videos exploring jazz repertoire in a chordless trio format gradually evolved into a fully realized artistic project. “Originally, as with our first album, I imagined this trio’s role as engaging primarily with the canon,” Madsen explains. “Exploring lesser-known standards, pooling our talents to collectively interpret the music of others in our own way. But when I began considering the possibility of composing for the trio, inspiration struck. Clark and I started thinking together about how we might approach it.”
For musicians of this sophistication, interpreting standards can feel almost effortless, an exercise in fluency. Writing original compositions, however, transforms the ensemble from interpreters into architects. Threefold is less a portfolio than a statement of identity. Its thesis is clear: the chordless trio is not a limitation but an engine for structural invention.
All three musicians are deeply embedded in Chicago’s fertile jazz scene, their rapport forged through years of collaboration. Madsen’s 2019 album Bonfire featured the same core personnel augmented by piano, but the absence of a chordal instrument here changes the chemistry entirely. Without harmonic cushioning, every detail surfaces. In quieter passages, the faint click of saxophone pads becomes part of the texture. Brushes whisper across snare head and cymbal with painterly restraint. The acoustic bass resonates not merely as foundation but as counter-voice, its woody bloom carrying both rhythm and implication.
The spaciousness demands attentiveness. This is not an album designed for passive consumption; its intellectual density and rhythmic subtlety may elude casual listening. At times, abstraction edges melody toward austerity. Yet even in its most angular moments, the trio resists sterility. There is warmth in the interplay, a sense of collective curiosity rather than cerebral display.
“We all love the rhythm of swing as much as other styles, so we made sure to stay true to that spirit,” Madsen says. “I love the challenge of pooling our knowledge of jazz tradition and using those inclinations to interpret our original compositions in a unique way.”
That balance is palpable throughout. “Shadow People” rides a hypnotic 6/4 groove, its circular momentum subtly recalling the expansive logic of Bob Mintzer’s Black Sand. “Revolving Door,” by contrast, leans into an Ornette Coleman–like angularity, lines colliding and refracting rather than resolving. Yet even there, swing flickers beneath the surface, anchoring the abstraction in something bodily and human.
What ultimately distinguishes Threefold is its refusal to treat rhythm as mere scaffolding. Each composition feels carefully hewn, shaped with intention rather than ornament. The trio builds structures that invite entry but do not immediately reveal their internal logic. Listening becomes participatory: one follows the vein of a melodic fragment, traces a rhythmic displacement, recognizes the echo of tradition refracted through modern sensibility.
There is pleasure here, intellectual, yes, but also visceral. Moments of surprise give way to recognition; tension resolves into brief lyric clarity before tilting again. The album does not shout its ambitions. It constructs them, patiently and precisely.
In Threefold, rhythm is not background. It is blueprint.
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, February 24th 2026
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Musicians :
CHRIS MADSEN: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
CLARK SOMMERS: acoustic bass
DANA HALL: drums, cymbals
Track Listing :
Digital Harvest
Shadow People
Mads
Hidden Message
Dream Music
Revolving Door
Man Of Action
Buyer’s Remorse
Tracks 1, 2, 5, 7 composed by Chris Madsen
Tracks 3, 4, 6, 8 composed by Clark Sommers
Recorded May 14, 2025 at Pro Musica, Chicago, IL
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Ken Christianson
Layout and design by Chad McCullough