What We Live

Never Was is the trio album of What We Live, the San Francisco group formed in 1994 by bassist Lisle Ellis with saxophonist Larry Ochs and drummer Donald Robinson. The three had met in the Glenn Spearman Double Trio, and their own band set out to treat swing, song form and modality less literally than the mainstream and more traditionally than free jazz usually does. On their previous Black Saint album, What We Live Fo(u)r, they had invited guests such as Spearman, koto player Miya Masaoka and violinist India Cooke. Here the trio plays alone, and the music is improvised throughout. The sessions came at a busy time for the band, between a spring 1996 tour of Italy, Austria and Hungary, which included a live broadcast for RAI in Rome, and a July return to Europe for the Nickelsdorf Konfrontationen.

It was recorded direct to digital stereo on June 13 and July 5, 1996 at Sharkbite Studio in Oakland by Mark Keaton, edited by Myles Boisen and produced by Ochs, with liner notes by Art Lange. Ochs plays tenor and sopranino, Ellis bass, Robinson drums, and all three share the composer credit. The eight titles play on tense, from Were and Will Be to As Is, Ever After and the closing Never Was. Writing in The Boston Phoenix, Ed Hazell called the trio "coherently spontaneous and thoughtfully wild". He pointed to Robinson's recurring snare-rim figure, which holds the opening of Were together, and to Ellis's ostinatos under Will Be. In his account, As Is and the title track move through several duo pairings as well as the full trio to change colour and texture, and the players take care not to repeat themselves from track to track.

This is the Black Saint CD 120169-2, the album's original 1998 release.