Josh Johnson ANIMATIVE

Josh Johnson and his saxophones are key figures in one of the United States’ most exciting and emergent music scenes—the improvisational enclave of Midwest émigrés who took root and bloomed in Los Angeles. Johnson arrived in the Chicago suburbs as a child, having already rejected early piano lessons for the realization he’d rather sit at the household instrument by himself and figure out the way it worked on his own. He gravitated toward the saxophone after hearing Lester Young, specifically his mix of reverence for the past and energy for the future. Jeff Parker became a teenage inspiration, inviting him over for a lesson that morphed into listening, playing, and bonding. In fact, Parker proved pivotal in Johnson’s subsequent decision to stay in California after attending the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at UCLA, as the guitarist had just started to build his own improvisational orbit. From stints as Leon Bridges’ musical director to session work with the likes of Harry Styles to his ongoing membership in SML and Parker’s ETA IVTet, Los Angeles became a laboratory for Johnson, letting him work in and learn from endless experiences and exchanges.

All of these experiences thread through 2026’s Animative, the confident and sweeping third solo album from Johnson. Guests like Marquis Hill and Meshell Ndegeocello speckle the tracks, but it’s mostly Johnson, his horn, and a litany of keyboards and electronics, all interacting through a series of circuits, loops, and pedals. During the brilliant “Jazz Chord Possession,” Johnson adds funk to a clanging boom-bap strut, then lays his sax across it in long lines that wind over each other, like a sky of cirrus clouds. Backed by Macie Stewart, Johnson fills “It Can Be Everywhere” with sounds that elide easy identification, his patient horn rising through sequences that make you wonder where synths end and saxophones begin, where rhythm and melody merge. At Big Ears 2027, Johnson not only plays with SML but brings a new trio, Animative, featuring bassist Anna Butterss and drummer Ben Lumsdaine.