Take the bass out of a jazz session and everything else has to hold the floor. That is the working premise of ‘Fun with Suwon and Friends Vol.2,’ the second jam session EP from pianist Suwon Yim with Rob Christian and Noam Guerrier Freud, three players based in Toronto, Montreal and Seoul.

Title track ‘Careful With Joy’ shows the method plainly. Piano, flute and drums pass improvised phrases between them in real time, with no bass to mark the harmony, so the three lines have to keep listening to each other to stay upright. The playing is bright and unguarded rather than academic, and that same interplay runs across all six tracks.

Piano, flute and drums improvising in real time with no bass to lean on — six tracks of listening out loud.

Yim brings a substantial record to the session. A summa cum laude graduate of the Berklee Global Jazz programme, he has toured with the Ray Brown Jr. Quartet, released eleven full-length albums, drawn notice from Jazz People and MM Jazz, and currently holds 6,430 monthly listeners on Spotify.

For anyone who follows contemporary jazz or keeps an instrumental piano playlist running, this is an easy room to sit in. Put it on and follow whichever line you like — the other two will still be there when you come back.

#ContemporaryJazz #JamSession #JazzImprov