Ralph Alessi

On A Sun That Never Sets the trumpeter Ralph Alessi enlarges his quartet into a quintet for eleven new compositions, all his own. The fifth voice is his brother Joseph Alessi, principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic and mainly a classical player. It is Ralph's first quintet record since Imaginary Friends (2019), made with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane in his group This Against That. The writing moves between patient, contemplative pieces and angular themes with heavy blowing, all of it driven by syncopation.

Pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist John Hébert and Ches Smith, on drums and vibraphone, complete the band. The brothers started playing together only in the past ten years, after Joseph sat in on one of Ralph's lectures at the University of Nevada in Reno. Ralph had never made a record with trombone, and describes writing for it as "uncharted waters through and through for me." The album was recorded in February 2025 at Oktaven Audio in Mount Vernon, New York, with engineer Ryan Streber. It was mixed in Munich and produced by Alessi with Manfred Eicher.

The title track works as a syncopated fanfare, with Smith's vibraphone and Hébert's bass moving around the trumpet before Mitchell takes the music elsewhere. Relaxed Misery opens with the brothers improvising freely, then clear unison lines arrive over an insistent ostinato and Ralph solos with a mute. Sweet Spot is a short ballad coloured by vibraphone, where a single trombone passage brings the piece to its peak. Alessi names Ornette Coleman and Igor Stravinsky as composers he keeps returning to, and both extremes can be heard in the programme.

In The Wire, Phil Freeman called the tracks "gentle but swinging modernist post-bop tunes with occasional flourishes", and noted how Alessi lets his rhythm section take the music to interesting places. Matt Collar at AllMusic heard echoes of Jimmy Giuffre's small groups of the 1960s, adding that "Alessi never lets things get out of control." In France, Jazz Magazine gave the record its Choc rating, and German reviewers were equally warm.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2864, released on 3 July 2026.