Jakob Bro / Joe Lovano / Midori Takada

For the first time, Danish guitar mastermind Jakob Bro merges two streams of his busy collaborative life—with heralded Japanese percussionist Midori Takada and New York jazz saxophone giant Joe Lovano. When Bro was still in his 20s, in 2004, he recorded his ECM debut with Paul Motian, the drummer who had been a bandleader for and mentor to Lovano in the ’80s. Bro later signed to ECM himself. A decade after Motian’s death, he and Lovano rendezvoused on the label to lead a star-studded and exquisite tribute to the late drummer, their guitar and saxophone unfurling like a conversation about favorite memories of a shared friend. Bro and Lovano have since released a live album together, recorded over a three-night stand at the Village Vanguard. With Bro on electric guitar and Lovano on tenor and Hungarian tárogató, that music was patient and restrained even at its most aggressive, the band moving like a single graceful organism.

Bro met Takada in 2022 through a commission by Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal. The two improvisers quickly connected, performing there and in Copenhagen and, in 2024, rendezvousing for a three-day recording session in Tokyo’s Avaco Studio. In those three days, they recorded a trilogy of wondrous records they began issuing in September 2025 with Until I Met You. “Infinity” is a lovely piano-and-guitar duet, “A Brief Rest of Sisyphos” a pensive meditation shared between Bro’s acoustic and Takada’s marimba. In October 2026, the pair will release From Such a Blue Sky, its pieces like the continuation of a warm and welcome conversation between two instant friends. Big Ears 2027 is delighted to host the first communion of these three uniquely legendary players.