29th January 2021: Announcing the signing of Chet Doxas for new trio record ‘You Can’t Take It With You’ (feat. Ethan Iverson & Thomas Morgan) out Sept 24th

We’re delighted to announce the signing of saxophonist and composer Chet Doxas for his new trio record ‘You Can’t Take It With You’, featuring pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Thomas Morgan. The album will be out on LP, CD & DL on September 24th. Stay tuned for pre-order announcements, live gigs and video session announcements over the next couple of months.

Chet Doxas is quickly becoming one of the most well respected and sought after saxophonists and composers of his generation. He is best known for his ability to add his unique voice to a wide variety of musical settings and styles.

“Doxas boasts a tonally rich, flexible style of improvising.” The New York Times

Since a move to New York in 2014, he has had the opportunity to perform alongside or record with: Carla Bley, Steve Swallow, Dave Douglas, and Michael Formanek. Chet is a multiple Juno Award nominee who’s playing was featured on the Grammy Award nominated soundtrack, Les Triplettes de Belleville and 2019 was awarded the Haygood Hardy Award in Jazz Composition from SOCAN.

Here’s Chet on the inspiration for the album:

The idea for this trio came thanks to some very helpful advice, in a very unlikely place, very early in the morning. It was 5am in Hannover, Germany, in an airport shuttle and I was in the middle of European tour with a group called Riverside. The group featured Dave Douglas, my brother – Jim Doxas, Steve Swallow and Carla Bley. On this morning, I had the good fortune of being seated on the back bench of the van between Steve and Carla (where the cool kids sit).  We were talking about their trio with Andy Sheppard and I was telling them how much that group’s music meant to me. That’s when Carla asked me “ well… why don’t you start your own trio?”

In the moment that it took my jet-lagged brain to process the idea, she then followed her question with something that was only whispered, as almost  a secret: “one song a month…” Before I could turn to her to pry for further elaboration, the same secret was whispered in my left ear, only this time by Steve, “one song a month…” What were they talking about? How did this apply to starting my own group? What time is it, again? They were both kind enough to take the remainder of the van ride to explain. They meant that I should take an entire month to compose each piece for my new group and that after a year I would have the appropriate amount of music needed perform and ultimately record with my own trio. As I moved through the year, the sound of the trio and its members revealed themselves to me. As I wrote, the cast of players continued to narrow in my mind until only two names remained, Ethan Iverson on piano and Thomas Morgan on bass.

It is my hope that the listener will share in the excitement, introspection, and discovery that I felt while going on this journey and hopefully finding a bit of themselves in these pieces.