Byard Lancaster

With Us, Byard Lancaster inaugurates what would become an intensely creative chapter within the fertile ground of early-‘70s Paris, under the adventurous spirit of Palm Records and Jef Gilson. Assembled with drummer Steve McCall and bassist Sylvin Marc, the album stands as a testament to collective, genre-resistant improvisation at its most focused and imaginative. Opening with the sprawling “Mc Call All,” the group quickly establishes a kind of kinetic telepathy—McCall’s drums serving as a pulse that is both anchoring and constantly shifting, while Marc’s bass weaves between groove and abstraction. Lancaster, alternating between saxophone and flute, commands the ensemble with a direct yet searching lyricism, methodically unraveling themes before submerging them in dense improvisatory explorations.​

The ambiance is unmistakably of its time and place: with the palette expanded to include meditative passages as well as sudden surges of free jazz fervor. The titular track “Us” distills the trio’s ethos—a refusal to remain bound by form, yet each digression remains tethered by intent. The group’s improvisations remain open but never unfocused; melody is foregrounded, but only as a launching point into extended interplay that invites listeners to lean in close. This is not music of relentless agitation, but rather of luminous patience and cumulative discovery, reflective of Lancaster’s broader project: a music committed equally to collective freedom and melodic clarity. The trio’s dynamic persists throughout, shaping a record that sounds as vital and invigorating now as when it was cut.​

Us endures as not just a product of Lancaster’s restless imagination, but as a vivid snapshot of Pan-African jazz’s Parisian flowering, remaining a touchstone in the legacies of both free improvisation and spiritual jazz. Its inclusion within the Palm Years retrospectives underscores how Lancaster, through projects like this, continued to expand the expressive boundaries of his instrument and ensemble, mapping new, resonant territory with every breath and beat.