MEZZO is a brand new duet recorded in New York this Spring by two Grammy Award-winning artists.

The transatlantic meeting started 25 years ago with Garland’s Made By Walking album on Chick Corea’s label and continued with three albums with the “Storms/Nocturnes” trio ( also featuring Joe Locke).

Both seasoned players have globe-trotted with some of the most famous players in music and show their crystalline lyrical maturity as well as incendiary virtuosity in a set that features one new and rare instrument after which the album is named:-

There are only 20 handmade Mezzo-Soprano saxophones in the world. Garland’s rich and expressive sound on the Mezzo features on six tracks, with the remaining two featuring his celebrated regular soprano.
With references to a fully acoustic classical sensibility as well as jazz, stunning originals sit alongside renditions of famous pieces by Satie ( Gnossaine ), Cole Porter ( Every Time We Say Goodbye ) and NY scene legend Mulgrew Miller.

Mezzo will be the first jazz album to showcase the Mezzo Soprano saxophone, and the project is an ideal showcase for music conventions and hybrid music festivals as well as international jazz festivals with and without amplification. A US / UK collaboration of global stature.

As Peter Jessen, creator of the Mezzo Soprano Sax said recently, “Your sound and feel of it is really the realisation of everything I wanted it to be! Sublime playing and very fine writing”