Salt Catchers is new next month from Andy Sheppard with Rita Marcotulli and Michel Benita that includes a freshly recorded take on Carla Bley’s ‘Lawns.’
Drummerless, the album features eight new Sheppard compositions plus the Bley piece.
Sheppard, 69, wrote prolifically during the pandemic, turning toward piano-based writing rather than the guitar led projects of his recent past. He sought a “chamber-like” character while keeping his own sound world intact, and settled on a drummerless trio to sharpen the focus on melody, harmony and space. He cites his years with Bley – who died in 2023 – and Steve Swallow as a direct inspiration for returning to a no drums setting: “I enjoyed the very special challenge of playing without the accompaniment of drums so much,” he says, adding that the new record is “in a certain way tied to those years full of fond memories with Carla and Steve.”
The title Salt Catchers comes from a visit to the Salinas (salt works) near Aveiro, Portugal, where photos of workers catching salt suggested both the physical difficulty of the job and the tricky nature of one of the tunes; the album also nods to the photographer Sebastião Salgado via the track ‘Salgado’ (“salty”). Sheppard notes the influence of his life near Lisbon and the Portuguese sense of saudade – a bittersweet longing – running through the music.
An English saxophonist based in Lisbon, Sheppard has built a distinctive ECM catalogue from quintet and quartet records to the Bley-Swallow trio. His early work with John Martyn and the UK singer-songwriter scene informs his love of “real songs” within a jazz frame, and he describes himself as “a romantic at heart.”
Rita Marcotulli, 67, is an Italian pianist Sheppard has known for years. Think a sound that lands between Huw Warren and Nikki Iles, perhaps, as rough sign posting. Salt Catchers marks her first appearance on an ECM album – fact fans.
Michel Benita, 72, is a French bassist and long-time associate of Sheppard, singled out for his lyricism and his feel for the folkloristic and melodic aspects of Sheppard’s writing. Like Marcotulli, he brings deep empathy and a shared history to the trio.
The collaborative chemistry between Sheppard and Benita is documented across four distinct albums, primarily released through ECM Records. Their partnership took centre stage on the 2012 album Trio Libero, a stripped-back project alongside drummer Sebastian Rochford (Polar Bear, Sons of Kemet).
This foundational trio expanded into a quartet by inviting Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset into the fold, resulting in the atmospheric textures of 2015’s Surrounded by Sea and its 2018 follow-up, Romaria.
First released on Bley’s 1987 ECM album Sextet, ‘Lawns’ is a slow, romantic ballad built on a highly syncopated, lyrical melody and a flowing chord progression that balances simplicity with subtle harmonic colour. The theme is typically presented as a 16-bar phrase repeated at the octave to form a 32-bar structure, using four-bar phrases that give the tune its gently unfolding, song-like quality. Harmonically, it leans on expressive devices such as the minor iv resolving to I and richly voiced dominant chords, while inviting improvisers to explore altered and whole-tone colours over its changes.
Though an instrumental in origin, the piece later acquired lyrics by Kurt Elling as ‘Endless Lawns,’ further extending its reach.
Over the years ‘Lawns’ has been taken up by a wide range of players, from John Scofield and Kazumi Watanabe to Noël Akchoté, Fredrik Ljungkvist, Fabrizio Bosso and several European trios and duos. Vocal versions of the Elling lyric adaptation have appeared on records by Kurt Elling himself (with Marquis Hill), Georgia Cécile and others, while solo piano and small group instrumental covers continue to surface in clubs and on streaming platforms.
