A few months ago we wrote here, when Will Guthrie was coming, that “it’s kind of evident that in the last few years we have been experiencing in western parts a kind of exponential awakening to the possibilities of percussion” and now this trio of supreme percussion, very free, with the name Alma Tree, continues that same logic. Pedro Melo Alves has maintained a fertile residence here at home called ‘Conundrum Cycle’ in consonance with an effervescent activity that spreads between projects like Rite of Trio, his Omniae Ensemble and innumerable meetings inside and outside jazz and doors, in a continuum of remarkable production. Vasco Trilla, a Portuguese-Catalan musician with strong connections to the fruitful Polish improvised-jazz scene, whose language continually expands in a search for new forms of percussive expression, resorting to and inventing a wealth of techniques that lead him to play in the most diverse contexts – the fusion of Planeta Imaginario, the elusive rock of October Equus, the free jazz of Cows in Trees, or incursions into non-Western music – always with an admirable thirst for discovery. Closing this triangle is Ra-Kalam master Bob Moses, a New York veteran whose work dates back to the late 60’s under Roland Kirk and Gary Burton and who has continued, unwavering, to spread the word of jazz and freedom to all who are entitled to it – i.e. everyone. Emphatic on the educational role of music, in the last decades he has dedicated himself with eagerness and passion to mentorship, gathering students to play his works in a community spirit not far from that propagated by the late Milford Graves. He has rediscovered himself in the same process, in the style of luminaries who don’t give in to the dull conformism of jazz or to the weight of reputation, even if it brings with it names like Carla Bley, Herbie Hancock, Charles Mingus, or Hermeto Pascoal – the list is endless, he even played on Todd Rundgren’s ‘Runt’. To brighten even more this celebration, a trio of saxophonists of respect in the figures of Albert Cirera, João Mortágua and Yedo Gibson joins the percussive armada. Imposing. BS