"Dalgleish, having switched from his usual alto to tenor sax, blazed away, conjuring echoes of great tenor players from Coleman Hawkins to Sonny Rollins to Albert Ayler; all the while remaining very much his own man. There was a sense of pure anarchy on stage, as (Alan) Browne interspersed his playing with fragments of spoken poetry... it was that sort of 'in the moment' performance: madcap, inspired and revelatory." Des Cowley (Rhythms magazine)

This QLD-NSW-VIC collaboration, devised by one of Australia's great musicians Elliott Dalgleish, explores the profound contribution to the evolution of jazz and improvisation made by Lennie Tristano, Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz. While older fans and students of the music understand what these three greats achieved, many younger and equally enthusiastic listeners might only have a vague idea or even none at all, of their stature. Dalgleish, as he showed to such devastating effect last year at the 2011 Wangaratta Jazz Festival, knows how to make the jazz past a living, breathing part of the present. Fronting the quartet version of his Mute Canary Project he presented an integrated arrangement of tunes by composers as diverse as Steve Lacy, Andrew Hill, Cecil Taylor, Roscoe Mitchell, and Tony Williams. In his review, John Clare called it "an enthralling performance". With the musicians assembled here, we've no doubt this will achieve similar heights.

Elliott Dalgleish (saxophone) Paul Grabowsky (piano) Alister Spence (rhodes) Doug de Vries (guitar) Philip Rex (bass) Chris Vale (drums)