Koma Saxo – Post Koma 
(We Jazz Records WJCDFIFTY. Review by Tony Dudley-Evans)

Bass player Petter Eldh adds a tremendous punch to any group he plays in.  He has played with Django Bates in his Belovèd Bird trio, and now plays and tours regularly with Kit Downes and James Maddren in the ENEMY piano trio.  His forceful playing alongside Otis Sandsjö’s equally forceful saxophone provide the contrast with Lucia Cadotsch’s hauntingly gentle vocals that is the unique character of the trio.  

It is, however, in the groups he leads and composes for that his expressive playing finds its best context. His compositions are frenetic, involving frequent changes of pace and dynamic, but always engaging.  His group Amok Amor with Peter Evans, Wanja Slavin and Christian Lillinger played dates in the UK back in 2015 and 2016, and left audiences very happy, but wondering what exactly they had heard. 

His Koma Saxo albums have a similar impact.  The group has a three saxophone front line, Otis Sandsjö and Jonas Kullhammar on tenor saxophones, and Mikko Innanen on alto and baritone saxophones, plus Christian Lillinger‘s very distinctive drumming that combines many elements of contemporary percussion from jazz and urban music, giving the group a very particular drive and energy.

The Peter Eldh Presents Koma Saxo album on We Jazz Records (2019) provided a good example of the group’s music with its fast and furious compositions driven by Lillinger’s drums and leading into full on individual solos or collective improvisation.  The tracks are mostly quite short at three or four minutes in length.  There are, however, a couple of even shorter tracks at about one and a half minutes that provide a strong immediate blast.

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This, the latest album, Post Koma, also on We Jazz Records, expands this approach of very short tracks; it has 13 tracks of 1 to 3 minutes over a CD  that is just 34 minutes in length. The mood changes rapidly from one track to the next, and there is a kind of restless momentum to the CD driven by Eldh’s big sound on the double bass and Lillinger’s drums.  There is, however, more of a dynamic range on this latest album compared to earlier ones, and some different textures.  Jonas Kullhammar plays flute on five tracks and alto saxophonist Maciej Obara joins the ensemble on three tracks, playing an attractive duet with Eldh on the final track, Sä Tinner Tiden Bort.  Vocalist Sofia Jernberg joins very briefly on three tracks adding her wordless vocal sound to the ensemble passages.   

The mood changes from the more upbeat tracks such as Komma Hem, to more measured tracks.  Stundens Hetta has in its opening ensemble passage has something of the vibe of a big band saxophone section from the 1940s, while Natt Koma begins as a gentler sax, bass and drums track before moving into a duet between bass and drums.  The opening track, Koma, also features a duet between bass and drums. The composition on Omkomma Hemma has an anthemic feel.

I suspect that Koma Saxo is a band that is best heard live, nonetheless the energy and drive of the band’s music comes across well on this CD.

LINKS: WeJazz/Koma Saxo Bandcamp
Alison Bentley’s review of Koma Saxo Live (2021)
Tony Dudley-Evans’s review of Koma West (2022)