Carter, Daniel + Ayumi Ishito, Eric Plaks, Zach Swanson, John Panikkar

***Open Question Vol. 1—soon to be followed by a second volume—is the first of two albums that rely on warm, collective, and freely improvised music. The band formed organically in 2019 from weekly jam sessions in Harlem; it is comprised of tenor saxophonist Ayumi Ishito, pianist Eric Plaks, bassist Zach Swanson, and drummer Jon Panikkar, and later, multi-instrumentalist Daniel Carter. Recording an album with only free improvisation was Ishito’s long-time dream, stalled by the pandemic, and realized only this year. Open Question’s music today, while fully improvised, remains firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. This is best heard on “Synchronicity,” the last recorded piece of the session, where each musician’s trajectory diverges even as the piece holds together. On the track, Carter starts out with soprano sax then later switches to tenor toward the middle of the piece, as Carter and Ishito playfully spar with competing tenor melodies.