UK readers will probably remember alto saxophonist and educator John O’Gallagher from his years – from 2018 until 2021 – as Senior Lecturer at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. During that period he made a series of fine recordings with local musicians, but before arriving in the UK the Berklee alumnus had spent close to three decades living and working in New York. Carving out a distinctive voice within the Coltrane lineage, he can be heard on upwards of eighty recordings. He recently relocated to Lisbon, and it’s clear from the sentiments expressed in the pre-release publicity materials for this, his thirteenth album as leader, he feels that he is at the start of an exciting new phase in his career.
Before we get to the album’s stellar line-up it should be explained that the creative impetus for ‘Ancestral’ stretches back to O’Gallagher’s PhD studies, in particular a dissertation on Coltrane’s late and much debated albums ‘Interstellar Space’ and ‘Stellar Regions’. Singling out the saxophonist’s organisation of pitch, he set about “refuting the notion of free jazz as disordered or chaotic”. Applying his lessons to his own music, O’Gallagher’s aim was to develop an approach that would allow similar freedoms within in his musical systems. The album’s eight loosely structured pieces include a number of open-form improvisations and skeletal compositions, and even the relatively through-composed pieces afford the musicians significant latitude for self-expression.
At the beating heart of the ensemble are two master drummers – Andrew Cyrille and Billy Hart. This is the first time they’ve recorded together, a real coup for O’Gallagher, though both have previously alternated in the drum seat on albums by Mary Lou Williams and David Murray. Together they form an extremely tight-knit tandem, listening and responding instinctively to whatever situation is unfolding around them. Much the same can be said of guitarist Ben Monder, and his smart use of effects adds significant breadth, depth and texture. As an interesting sidebar this is Monder’s second Coltrane-flavoured offering of the year, coming after the brilliant ‘Transition(s)’ (Corner Store Jazz), an expansive set of duets with drummer Phil Haynes.
The music was recorded in New Jersey in January 2024, and as has so often been the case throughout O’Gallagher’s career many of the tracks are first takes. On the opening Awakening, his folksy alto recalls Jan Garbarek, another musician who has drawn his own conclusions from Coltrane. Cyrille and Hart provide a low mallet counterpoint, and the piece then picks up pace before rising to a visceral crescendo. Under The Wire has an off-kilter swing pitched somewhere between Monk and Motian, and O’Gallgher’s free-ranging solo is at once soulful and searching. One of the disc’s many highlights is the freely improvised Contact, which blossoms from a low percussive rustle into something strangely majestic, Monder’s fulsome chords filling the space before finally being consumed in a wall of industrial noise.
Elsewhere, Tug reminds me of Tim Berne, earthy and Hemphill-esque, its title suggestive of the way that the two drummers stretch the pulse. O’Gallagher’s spiralling solo on Profess is redolent of Coltrane’s sheets of sound, while on Altar Of The Ancestors the quartet dig into Coltrane’s late period, O’Gallagher’s steely phrasing locking horns with the drummers. Quixotica returns to a somewhat gentler space, its descending melody laced with mystery, and the quartet quickly settles into a natural cadence on the improvised ‘Postscript’, and somewhat paradoxically it’s one of the very first pieces they recorded.
The opportunity to hear the two master drummers together for the first time is enough to make ‘Ancestral’ unmissable, but this shouldn’t be allowed to overshadow the fact that all four musicians scale some pretty remarkable heights. Even at its wildest the music has a compelling logic, and that, ultimately, is the mark of its success.
‘Ancestral’ is released on 24 October 2025
