Oded Tzur

CD version. Here Be Dragons is the ECM debut of Oded Tzur, a Tel Aviv-born tenor saxophonist based in New York since 2011. His soft, fluid sound and his use of pitch slides and microtonal shading come from years of study with the bansuri master Hariprasad Chaurasia. The concept of raga sits quietly inside his tunes, played by a quartet that never forces the pace.

Tzur leads an Israeli-Greek-American band: Nitai Hershkovits on piano, Petros Klampanis on double bass, who has been with him since his move to New York, and Johnathan Blake on drums. Hershkovits first drew attention in Avishai Cohen's groups, and Blake, from Philadelphia, has worked with musicians from Kenny Barron to Pharoah Sanders. Before this album the quartet had made two records for Enja, including Translator's Note in 2017. Here Be Dragons was recorded in June 2019 at Auditorio Stelio Molo of RSI in Lugano, engineered by Stefano Amerio and produced by Manfred Eicher. The booklet carries liner notes by Tzur and Steve Lake.

Tzur builds most pieces on a miniature raga over a moving bass line, and the tension between the fixed mode and the shifting harmony drives the music. The title track opens calmly, the tenor entering over a rumble of bass and a shimmer of cymbals before each player takes a turn. To Hold Your Hand uses the Indian scale Charukesi. 20 Years, a devotional piece of almost ten minutes, holds a lyrical piano solo and a tenor solo that builds to real intensity. Three brief Miniatures feature piano, bass and saxophone in turn. The album ends with a slowed, sparse reading of Can't Help Falling In Love, the song made famous by Elvis Presley.

Peter Bacon of London Jazz News heard in the tenor "a distinctly flute-like timbre" and called the album "a beautiful musical concept perfectly realised". Jim Motavalli of the New York City Jazz Record found it an album of radical gentleness, even for ECM. He also noted that the pianist is as much in front as the leader.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2676, first released on 14 February 2020, with a 28-page booklet.