Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few

It may be true that every second young saxophonist would like to sound like John Coltrane. But: Only a handful feel the spirit, reach the radicality, possess the dynamics of this icon. One of them: Isaiah Collier from Chicago. With his excellent quartet The Chosen Few, he recorded the five-part suite "Cosmic Transitions": it is a highly energetic continuation, from the first second, of the spiritual jazz born of the blues, as it sparked with Coltrane and Sanders.

Collier, with his rough, hissing, unbridled tone, creates an agitated, exciting intensity in the interplay with Mike King's powerfully expansive piano, which always strives toward uplift and redemption, a perfect beauty, without ever being completely absorbed in it. The tension between exaltation and gentleness, the avoidance of all clichés, the maturity and playful imagination make this quartet so fascinating, present-day and fresh, despite all its ties to tradition.