Rounding back into live performing shape after that nasty virus shut down concerts, saxophonist Catherine Sikora eased herself back into form with a socially-safe concert where only two people were present at a private stage in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. corners is a capture of a unique performance by Sikora from May 2021, where she played each piece for a different audience of one.
Sikora is heard alternating between tenor and soprano saxes, playing twelve originals (she actually played fourteen pieces that night but her recorder ran out of disk space during the thirteenth piece) and yet we still get more than an hour and a half of music.
That cavernous sonority serves as an important element of the presentation, the notes slowly dissipating into the ether. Sikora’s songs obliterates the distinction between charted melody and improvisation, playing with purpose and direction but also in the moment.
The acoustics that allows notes to hang in the air longer is shrewdly exploited by Sikora. A loneliness portraying by brooding, drawn-out notes set the mood for “Gratitude for Breath” before Sikora goes for it and launches into a series of denser patterns. “Warrior ii: Return Home” follows much the same scheme but with extra soulfulness in her notes.
Those songs were carried out by tenor sax. On soprano saxophone for songs such as “Sun Clouds, Helicopters” and “If Not Today, When?”, the relatively lighter of sounds from that instrument float leisurely into the room as her straight horn has a peering and searching quality to it.
Playing in the most exposed settings is a Catherine Sikora hallmark, whether it’s a hastily-arranged improv duet or a series of concerts by one, for one. Her fearlessness never lets her – nor the listener – down.
Pick up corners from Catherine Sikora’s Bandcamp page.
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