Tenderlonious - Africa/Brass Live (2026)

In 1961, John Coltrane walked into a recording studio with 21 musicians and made history. Africa/Brass — his first record on Impulse! — captured the sound of a continent in the midst of revolution (17 African countries had gained independence the year before). It fused rapid-fire saxophone arpeggios with lush brass arrangements and expansive modal passages so trance-inducing it would go on to shape the music of Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and many more that followed.

Sixty-four years later, Tenderlonious set out to invoke that moment; honouring the original recording while pushing it forward with a Coltrane-like fervour.

He had initially considered A Love Supreme but decided against it as the more obvious choice. Africa/Brass was the underrated one, the modal one, the album where Coltrane ventured furthest into uncharted territory. And modal jazz, the discipline of staying inside a scale, of finding everything you need in five or six notes and just hanging there, is where Tenderlonious likes to live. He likens it to playing Indian ragas: no divergence, just the scale and the search. “I just want to sit on a scale for ten minutes,” he says, “and find something there.”

That search is what he brought to the Melbourne International Jazz Festival in October 2025, as part of Pique-nique’s Take Two series. Each Take Two event begins with an uninterrupted, high-fidelity playback of a seminal album, heard as it was originally intended, followed by a live reinterpretation with full artistic freedom. It’s an experiment into what happens when serious musicians immerse themselves in a work long enough to discover their own path through it.

For this performance, Tenderlonious assembled a quartet of trusted collaborators. Tim Carnegie, his longtime drummer, flew in from London. Horatio Luna on bass and On-Ly on piano completed the group, two Melbourne musicians Tenderlonious describes as “seriously underrated.” The melodies, he said, would be the foundation. After that, the search would begin. And the search was fierce!

That’s what you’re hearing on this record. One beautiful note, Tenderlonious will tell you, means more than a thousand. Coltrane knew it. And on a Monday night in Melbourne, they proved it.

Tenderlonious: alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, flute
On-Ly: piano
Horatio Luna: bass
Tim Carnegie: drums