John O'Gallagher - ANCESTRAL (2025) [Hi-Res]

Ancestral marks a profound metamorphosis for master saxophonist John O’Gallagher. He cast off his old skin, fundamentally altering his studies, homeland, and life, thereby charting a new future. Recorded at Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, New Jersey, in January 2024, Ancestral was influenced, in part, by O’Gallagher’s PhD studies into the music of John Coltrane, and reunites the versatile reeds player with guitarist Ben Monder while, notably, featuring the first-ever recorded collaboration between master drummers Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart.

“Basically, my PhD (available on O’Gallagher’s website) is an analysis where I transcribed all of Trane’s solos, spelling out what he does on his late recordings Interstellar Space and Stellar Regions. And it shows that free music is not free, not the way people think it is. Trane was definitely thinking about organization in those records. This research definitely gave me ideas about how to be freer within the systems that I had developed, and how to perceive them in a more organic way.”

O’Gallagher’s latest recording marks a significant artistic evolution, following a period of considerable personal change. After leaving Brooklyn, New York, he and his wife relocated to the UK before ultimately settling in Lisbon, Portugal. This journey, coupled with dedicated study, profoundly shaped his new music. O’Gallagher, Monder, Cyrille, Hart, and Coltrane: a potent brew.

In an album consisting largely of first takes, O’Gallagher’s compositions vary from through-composed pieces to skeletal charts to full-blown group compositions and improvisations.

‘Awakening’ begins slowly, like a spectral dawn, mallets dancing on drumheads, guitar and saxophone unfurling like a mist, forecasting the muscular middle section. “I wanted to portray something that felt ancient and organic, almost like a folk song. It awakens when it begins, introducing the listener to this emerging melody, and gets more intense until the final crescendo.” Like some skittering New Orleans rumble, ‘Under the Wire’ cavorts and skips, dips and cajoles. “It’s a blending of swing, a bass ostinato that Ben plays, with an interesting melody. It’s maybe Monkish in some ways; that was the idea behind that, just to have fun.”

The rustling percussion and angular guitars of ‘Contact’ portend an eerie solitude, its meeting points unknown. “It’s an improvised piece that Ben did with Andrew and Billy. It could mean a lot of things: get ready to take off, contact, strap in.” ‘Tug’ is regal, wily, flowing, salty, ethereal, deeply explosive. “The way Andrew is pulling at the time and almost doing the same thing as the harmony. Billy, laying down the time, it’s so beautiful. These musicians are masters of listening and creating textures and forms.”

A bubbling, floating feeling informs ‘Profess’, its energy and quaking drive recalling a Paul Motian recording. “That was a melody from a larger piece that gained its freedom.”

John O’Gallagher – alto saxophone
Ben Monder – guitar
Andrew Cyrille – drums
Billy Hart – drums