Influenced by artists ranging from
John Coltrane and
Archie Shepp to
Roscoe Mitchell, tenor and soprano saxophonist
Tony Malaby is a deeply inquisitive, yet commanding player and composer; he is comfortable playing both inside and out. The Tucson native arrived in New York City in the mid-'90s and made himself an integral member of the downtown scene as a sideman and bandleader. He made his proper leader debut in 2000 with
Sabino, leading a quartet that wove bracing post-bop and folk sounds from
Malaby's Mexican-American heritage. 2003's
Adobe with
Paul Motian and
Drew Gress won accolades internationally. Despite touring with his own groups, he's also played in bands led by
Mark Helias,
Mario Pavone,
Kris Davis, and
Paul Motian, among others. In 2005 he served in the Charlie Haden & the Liberation Music Orchestra for
Not in Our Name. In 2007 he released the improvised trio date
Tamarindo with
William Parker and
Nasheet Waits. In 2017 he cut
New Artifacts in live performance with
Mat Maneri and
Daniel Levin. 2019 saw
Malaby appear on no less than five albums, including Zoning with
Nick Fraser,
Davis,
Ingrid Laubrock and Lina Allemano. In 2021,
Malaby,
Ben Monder, and
Rainey issued the improvised date,
Live at the 55 Bar, and in 2022,
Malaby reunited Sabino -- with
Monder replacing
Marc Ducret on guitar -- for The Cave of Winds.
Malaby was born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1964 and grew up there;
Malaby made his first trip to New York in 1990, when he was attending William Paterson College in New Jersey. It was in New York that he met organist
Joey DeFrancesco, who employed him as a sideman for a year. The early '90s also found him playing with various
Charles Mingus ghost bands and with reedman
Marty Ehrlich, who featured him in a band that included
Michael Formanek on bass and
Tom Rainey on drums. That combo marked the beginning of an ongoing relationship with
Formanek and
Rainey, both of whom he played with extensively in the 1990s.
The saxman's first album as a co-leader came in 1993, when
Malaby and trombonist
Joey Sellers recorded Cosas for Nine Winds. In 2000,
Malaby recorded the avant-garde
Sabino under his own name leading a quartet that included guitarist
Marc Ducret, bassist
Formanek and drummer
Rainey. The date showcased
Malaby's take on post-bop as filtered through the folk traditions in Mexican music. He began a six-year, four-album playing relationship with pianist
Mario Pavone on 2002's Mythos. In 2003
Malaby cut the trio date
Adobe with bassist
Drew Gress and drummer
Paul Motian. The set offered an expansive showcase for
Malaby's avant leanings and won acclaim from jazz critics across the globe. The following year,
Motian returned the favor and hired
Malaby for his
ECM date
Garden of Eden.
Malaby is a prolific collaborator; among the many releases he appeared on by various leaders between 2003 and 2007 were Apparitions, with
Rainey,
Gress, and
Michael Sarin, and two Alive in Brooklyn outings with
Angelica Sanchez and
Rainey. In 2007,
Malaby cut
Tamarindo, his debut outing for Clean Feed, with bassist
William Parker and drummer
Nasheet Waits. It marked the beginning of a long relationship with the label.
The following year the saxophonist played on Ancestors, the last of his four albums with
Pavone, and released Full Contact with
Joachim Kuhn and
Daniel Humair. He also issued
Warblepeck by the
Tony Malaby Cello Trio featuring
Fred Lonberg-Holm and
John Hollenbeck. In 2009 he released the quartet offering Paloma Recio, his debut with New World. His sidemen included
Waits, bassist
Eivind Opsvik, and guitarist
Ben Monder. That same year, the
Stéphane Kerecki Trio with
Tony Malaby released Houria, the first of several collaborative outings -- it included compositions by
Olivier Messiaen among originals by the saxophonist and pianist.
Malaby toured the U.S. and Europe almost constantly, recording dates as he traveled. In 2010,
Tamarindo Live appeared from Lisbon's Clean Feed, while Pas de Dense, with
Daniel Humair and
Bruno Chevillon, appeared on Sweden's Zig Zag. Further, Haptein, an improvised duo with guitarist Richard Bonnet, was released by France's Hôte Marge. In 2013
Malaby joined Los Toscos, an avant-garde, experimental jazz band from Bogotá, to record Kalimán, one of his most exciting collaborations. That same year he appeared on
No Difference for Songlines with
Gordon Grdina,
Mark Helias, and
Kenton Loewen.
In 2011,
Malaby released one of his most ambitious outings. He formed a nonet to record
Novela. Arranged by
Davis (who also played piano on the date), it included radically revisioned works from earlier in his career performed by a group that included
Hollenbeck,
Ralph Alessi, and
Formanek, among others. As was typical of his more experimental leanings at that time, he was recruited by European collective Big Four to participate in the sessions for 2014's Mind the Gap.
Malaby continued working in Europe for most of that year. He also cut two sessions for Lithuania's No Business label: Niño/Brujo with cellist Christopher Hoffman and Juan Pablo Carletti, and A Way a Land of Life with
Rob Mazurek,
Jason Ajemian, and
Chad Taylor. He issued two more dates with Clean Feed in 2014: Somos Agua, a reunion outing with
Waits and
Parker, and the wooly Scorpion Eater by Tony Malaby’s Tubacello with Hoffman,
Dan Peck on tuba, and
Hollenbeck on drums. In 2015 he recorded and released Too Many Continents for Clean Feed in the company of
Davis and
Nick Fraser, and the following year reassembled his Paloma Recio band for
Incantation Suite. In 2017 he returned to the label to issue
New Artifacts, a live improvisation with
Mat Maneri and
Daniel Levin.
On Valentine's Day 2018,
Malaby joined
Formanek's Elusion Quartet in an upstate, New York recording studio to record Time Like This for
Intakt. The band also included
Davis and drummer
Ches Smith. In March of 2018, Los Toscos extended an invitation for
Malaby to return to Bogota. Their sessions resulted in the digital-only album La Vigilia de Las Flores (Lado Vigilia) released the following year. 2018 also saw the Clean Feed release of
Traveling Moving Breathing, a 2017 live date by the saxophonist with guitarist
Samo Salamon and drummer
Roberto Dani. Head Under Water, a trio set with saxophonist
Rob Burke and bassist
Helias appeared from FMR.
In 2019,
Malaby playing in a collective with
Fraser and
Davis, recorded Zoning for Astral Spirits. The date also included appearances from saxophonist
Ingrid Laubrock and Toronto-based trumpeter Lina Allemano. A duo set entitled Offering with bassist
Rob Clutton also appeared from Canada's SnailBongBong Records.
Though the world shut down for most of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic,
Malaby took to the streets. During the summer of 2020 he began hosting weekly outdoor sessions with friends under a turnpike overpass near his New Jersey home. These gatherings resulted in the digital only Turnpike Diaries, Vol. 1 with socially distanced participation from bassists
Helias and
Formanek, drummer
Ches Smith and saxophonist
Tim Berne. In 2021, with
Monder and
Rainey,
Malaby recorded the completely improvised
Live at the 55 Bar.
The previous year's impromptu underpass sessions also inspired the recording of The Cave of Winds, a 2021 studio session with most of the lineup of
Malaby's 2000 debut
Sabino:
Formanek on bass,
Rainey on drums, and
Monder replacing
Marc Ducret on guitar. The music straddled the line between post-bop, modal structures, and free improvisation. Released by Pyroclastic in January of 2022, the album was billed to Tony Malaby & Sabino. Following the recording,
Malaby moved from his longtime home in New York to Boston after accepting an appointment to the faculty of the Berklee College of Music. ~ Thom Jurek & Alex Henderson