# New CD – 2026: Moncef Genoud & Seamus Blake – Live at Porgy and Bess: Review, Video, new CD cover

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2026/08/17/new-cd-2026-moncef-genoud-seamus-blake-live-at-porgy-and-bess-review-video-new-cd-cover/
- Published: 2026-08-17T07:38:21+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Moncef Genoud & Seamus Blake – Live at Porgy and Bess: A Conversation in the Language
of Jazz.**

There are live jazz albums that document a concert, and there are live albums that
seem to preserve an atmosphere — the charged air of a room, the anticipation between
phrases, the sudden silence before a note, the laughter and applause that become
part of the music itself. Live at Porgy and Bess, the new 2026 recording by pianist
and composer Moncef Genoud with saxophonist Seamus Blake, belongs emphatically to
the second category. Recorded at Vienna’s legendary Porgy & Bess jazz club, the 
album is not simply a collection of performances captured on a particular evening.
It is an intimate musical encounter, an hour-long conversation between two exceptionally
experienced improvisers who understand that the deepest form of communication in
jazz often takes place in what is left unsaid.

Released in May 2026, Live at Porgy and Bess is Genoud’s fourth live album and his
first recorded entirely as a duo with Blake. The programme brings together six pieces—
three standards and three compositions by Genoud, including the newly written “Hochelaga,”
inspired by the Montreal neighbourhood that has remained one of the pianist’s favourite
destinations. The repertoire creates a remarkably open field in which familiarity
and discovery constantly meet.

What makes the album particularly compelling is its fundamental sparseness. There
is nowhere for either musician to hide behind an ensemble. No rhythm section to 
provide a continuous cushion, no additional harmonic instrument to fill the spaces,
no orchestral colour to disguise a hesitation or soften a musical decision. Piano
and saxophone stand face to face. Every phrase matters. Every breath matters. Every
silence becomes part of the composition.

And this is precisely where Genoud and Blake reveal the extraordinary maturity of
their musical relationship.

Their first meeting took place several years ago onstage in Thailand, and since 
then the two musicians have returned to one another repeatedly in performance. That
history can be heard throughout the album. They do not sound like two distinguished
musicians meeting for the first time and politely exchanging solos. They sound like
musicians who already know how the other thinks, where a phrase may lead, when to
interrupt it, when to leave it alone, and when an unexpected turn should be followed
rather than resisted. The official description of the album speaks of their “evident
complicity,” and that quality is perhaps the record’s defining characteristic.

Genoud’s piano is the centre of gravity, but it is never merely accompanimental.
His playing carries the weight of a pianist who has spent decades absorbing the 
traditions of jazz while remaining unwilling to become imprisoned by them. His musical
lineage reaches through figures such as Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Chick Corea, 
Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau, yet his language is 
distinctly his own. His career has also brought him into contact with major artists
including Michael Brecker, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jack DeJohnette, Bob Berg, Alvin
Queen, Larry Grenadier, Scott Colley and Grégoire Maret.

On Live at Porgy and Bess, however, the accumulated experience is distilled into
something wonderfully direct. Genoud does not play as though he has anything left
to prove. His touch can be crystalline and lyrical, but it can also become percussive,
angular and rhythmically provocative. Chords appear less as blocks of harmony than
as colours, suggestions and doors into another space. A familiar progression may
suddenly seem unfamiliar because Genoud has altered its emotional temperature. A
pause can carry as much meaning as a cascade of notes.

There is a particular elegance in the way he allows the piano to breathe beneath
Blake’s saxophone. Rather than constructing an impenetrable harmonic architecture,
Genoud creates a flexible landscape. Blake can move across it, challenge it, contradict
it, stretch it and return to it. The pianist responds in real time. Sometimes the
roles reverse: Blake becomes the quiet voice around which Genoud builds a miniature
harmonic universe.

Seamus Blake, meanwhile, brings to the album one of the most recognisable contemporary
saxophone voices in modern jazz. His playing combines muscularity with remarkable
lyricism. He can attack a line with extraordinary velocity, but equally compelling
is his ability to allow a note to hang in the air until it seems almost detached
from time. His tone can be warm and rounded one moment, sharp and penetrating the
next, and this elasticity makes him an ideal partner for Genoud’s piano.

The beauty of their interaction is that neither musician seems particularly interested
in domination. This is not a competition between piano and saxophone. It is a conversation
in which each voice continually modifies the other.

The standards become especially revealing in this respect. Rather than treating 
familiar material as museum pieces, Genoud and Blake approach it as living musical
language. A standard is not something to be reproduced; it is a structure from which
improvisation can begin. Melodic fragments emerge, disappear and return transformed.
Harmony becomes a moving object. The listener is constantly aware of the original
song without necessarily being confined to it.

That ability to make the familiar feel newly discovered is one of the oldest and
most difficult arts in jazz. It requires knowledge of tradition, but also the courage
to leave tradition behind for a moment.

The album’s original material deepens this sense of exploration. “Hochelaga,” in
particular, carries a special significance. Named after the Montreal neighbourhood,
the composition is connected to Genoud’s long relationship with the city and its
musical culture. It feels entirely appropriate that a piece associated with travel
and memory should find its place on an album so concerned with movement — movement
between instruments, between harmonic ideas, between written composition and spontaneous
invention.

In this sense, “Hochelaga” is more than simply another original composition in the
programme. It becomes part of Genoud’s continuing autobiographical musical language.
His albums have often reflected different aspects of his personal and artistic journey.
Introspection, released in 2023 after his return to the stage following the pandemic
years, was explicitly conceived as an intimate reflection on that period. Small 
Stories, released later in 2023, brought together original compositions developed
with bassist Tim Verdesca and drummer Cyril Regamey. Live at Porgy and Bess now 
extends that journey into a much more exposed conversational setting.

There is something deeply moving about hearing Genoud in this environment. His biography
is inseparable from his extraordinary relationship with sound. Born blind in Tunis
in 1961, he began piano lessons at the age of six and developed an exceptional auditory
memory, learning music by ear and gradually developing his own musical language.
He later studied at the Geneva Conservatory, obtaining his music-teaching degree
in 1987, and established himself as one of Switzerland’s leading jazz musicians.

Yet Live at Porgy and Bess should never be approached primarily through biography.
Its significance is musical. What matters is what happens when Genoud places his
hands on the keyboard and Blake raises the saxophone.

**The answer is a remarkably alive form of chamber jazz**

The absence of drums is particularly important. Without a conventional rhythmic 
engine, pulse becomes something that the two musicians create collectively. Genoud
can imply a beat through the left hand, fracture it with syncopation, suspend it
in rubato or allow the harmonic rhythm to carry the momentum. Blake then responds
with phrasing that can float above the implied pulse or lock into it with astonishing
precision.

There are moments when the music seems almost weightless, as though the two instruments
are suspended in the intimate darkness of the club. Then, without warning, the temperature
rises. A phrase becomes more insistent. The piano becomes more percussive. The saxophone
pushes harder. The conversation accelerates. And then, just as quickly, the musicians
pull back.

This is the particular drama of a great duo performance: the listener is constantly
aware that the next decision has not yet been made.

The live environment at Porgy & Bess intensifies that feeling. Vienna’s club has
long been an important home for adventurous jazz, and Genoud himself has an established
relationship with the venue; his earlier Live in Cully (Solo Piano) is even included
among the solo piano recordings highlighted by the club. The new recording therefore
feels less like a studio construction transplanted into a concert setting and more
like an authentic document of two musicians allowing a room to become part of their
creative process.

The audience is audible in the emotional architecture of the album. According to
Genoud’s own presentation of the release, the performance took place before a sold-
out crowd whose enthusiastic applause reflected the intensity of the encounter. 
That response matters because the music itself is not cold or academic. Even when
the improvisation becomes sophisticated, there remains a sense of playfulness and
human warmth.

That lightness is essential. Genoud and Blake are capable of considerable harmonic
and technical complexity, but they never allow virtuosity to become an end in itself.
There is humour in the exchanges, moments of musical mischief, sudden shifts in 
direction and a sense that both musicians genuinely enjoy the freedom of the format.
The album’s official description similarly emphasises that the conversation moves
between intensity and light-heartedness.

**This balance gives the recording its emotional breadth**

A weaker duo album might make the listener conscious of the absence of bass and 
drums. Here, the absence becomes a source of freedom. The music does not feel incomplete;
it feels deliberately open. Every empty space becomes available for another possibility.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful quality of Live at Porgy and Bess: it trusts
the listener to enter those spaces.

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There is no excessive production separating the listener from the performance. The
music feels close. One can imagine the piano occupying its physical space in the
club, Blake’s saxophone cutting through the air, the musicians listening across 
the stage and the audience leaning forward as the improvisations take unexpected
turns. The recording preserves the sensation of proximity — the sensation that jazz
is happening now, in front of us, rather than being presented as something already
finished.

Genoud’s compositional voice also deserves particular attention. His originals do
not merely provide vehicles for improvisation; they give the duo a personal vocabulary.
They reveal a composer interested in melody, atmosphere and harmonic ambiguity, 
but also in creating structures spacious enough for spontaneous interpretation. 
This is particularly effective in a duo context, where a composition must simultaneously
possess identity and flexibility.

Blake understands that flexibility instinctively. His improvisations seem to search
within Genoud’s themes rather than simply moving away from them. A melodic cell 
can become the beginning of an extended exploration; a rhythmic gesture can be turned
inside out; a harmonic suggestion from the piano can provoke an entirely new saxophone
colour.

The result is music that feels composed and improvised at the same time.

**That paradox lies at the heart of jazz itself**

The album’s six-track programme, confirmed in the current release listings, includes“
Chermignon,” “Aqua,” “Zingaro,” “I Mean You,” “Hochelaga” and “You Must Believe 
in Spring.” The titles themselves suggest the breadth of the programme: Genoud’s
own repertoire sits naturally alongside standards, and the distinction between “
composition” and “interpretation” becomes increasingly fluid as the album unfolds.

This is especially characteristic of Genoud’s career. His discography has repeatedly
moved between original music, jazz standards, popular repertoire, solo piano, trio
settings and collaborations. He has never seemed interested in choosing between 
tradition and modernity when he can instead allow the two to speak to each other.
His earlier Pop Songs, for example, transformed material associated with The Police,
Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors into a jazz setting, demonstrating his willingness
to approach familiar music from unexpected angles.

On the new album, however, the emphasis is more concentrated. There is no elaborate
concept standing between the listener and the musicians. The concept is the conversation
itself.

**And that conversation is extraordinarily rich**

Genoud’s maturity is perhaps most evident in his restraint. The experienced musician
knows that the strongest improvisation is not necessarily the most densely populated
one. A single chord, a carefully delayed resolution, a fragment of melody or an 
unexpected silence can alter the emotional direction of an entire passage. His playing
has the authority of someone who has spent a lifetime listening.

Blake brings a complementary authority. His saxophone vocabulary is broad enough
to accommodate both the lyrical and the fiercely modern, but he remains intensely
responsive to the piano. Rather than imposing a predetermined narrative, he seems
to listen for the story Genoud is beginning to tell and then add another chapter.

Together they create a musical language that is intimate without becoming fragile,
sophisticated without becoming cerebral, and adventurous without sacrificing melody.

Live at Porgy and Bess also feels like an album about time. Both musicians are now
artists with decades of experience behind them, yet there is nothing retrospective
about the music. It does not sound like an attempt to summarise careers. Quite the
opposite: it sounds curious. There is still somewhere else to go.

That youthful thirst for exploration is something Genoud’s biography explicitly 
emphasises, describing his present artistic period as a combination of maturity 
and continuing hunger for new musical discovery. The new album makes that statement
audible. It is not music made from nostalgia; it is music made from experience transformed
into possibility.

The title Live at Porgy and Bess is therefore almost deceptively simple. Behind 
it lies a meeting of histories: Tunisian-born, Swiss-based pianist Moncef Genoud,
whose career has carried him through Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and some
of the world’s major jazz stages; and Seamus Blake, a saxophonist whose own career
has established him as one of contemporary jazz’s distinctive improvising voices.
Their meeting in Vienna becomes a temporary musical world of its own.

And within that world, the piano and saxophone seem to speak in complete sentences
without ever finishing the conversation.

That is why this album works so beautifully as a new chapter in Genoud’s discography.
It adds another dimension to an already varied catalogue of trio recordings, solo
performances, collaborations and original compositions. His official discography
now places Live at Porgy and Bess alongside works such as Introspection, Small Stories,
Concert de Valère, Walk With Me, Live in Cully, Métissage and Aqua, revealing the
remarkable breadth of an artist who has continually reinvented his musical surroundings
without abandoning his essential voice.

**Ultimately, Live at Porgy and Bess is an album about listening**

Genoud listens to Blake. Blake listens to Genoud. Both listen to the room. And, 
eventually, the listener becomes part of that chain of attention.

There are no unnecessary walls between performer and audience here. The music breathes.
It hesitates. It smiles. It takes risks. It remembers. It moves forward.

In the intimate space of Porgy & Bess, Moncef Genoud and Seamus Blake discover how
much music can exist between two instruments when both musicians possess the confidence
to leave room for the other. Their dialogue moves from lyricism to abstraction, 
from rhythmic intensity to silence, from familiar standards to newly imagined compositions,
always retaining the essential warmth that makes great jazz feel less like a performance
than a conversation overheard at precisely the right moment.

Live at Porgy and Bess is therefore not merely another live recording. It is a document
of musical trust — two artists meeting inside the moment and allowing the moment
to determine where the music will go.

And perhaps that is the enduring magic of this album: it reminds us that jazz does
not need a crowded stage to become expansive. Sometimes two voices are enough. Sometimes
a piano and a saxophone, placed in the right room and entrusted to musicians who
know how to listen, can open an entire universe.

[**Buy from here – New CD**](https://moncefgenoud.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-porgy-and-bess)

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