Yeah NO

“Some of their music isn’t quite jazz,” Ben Ratliff wrote in The New York Times in 1999. “It’s atmospheric long tones, or a mass of fluttering voices, or pianissimo free-improvising, or something based in Balkan rhythms, or whatever else.” He was writing about Yeah NO, a quartet of vibrant young players who had coalesced around the multi-reedist Chris Speed in the mid-’90s. When the four-piece made its recorded debut in 1997, Yeah NO was simply the album title. But across two more albums around the turn of the millennium, it became clear this was a proper band, with Jim Black’s hyperactive drums and Skuli Sverrisson’s deep and thoughtful bass providing the framework for the twisting lines and uncanny harmonies of Speed and Cuong Vu. Finally recording under the name Yeah NO for 2004’s Swell Henry, the band was open and electrifying, with “Born in the Air” rising from languid drift to spiraling birdsong and “He Has a Pair of Dice” pummeling like Naked City with sharper melodies and more endurance.

For 20 years, it seemed that Yeah NO’s first official album might also be its last. Vu was busy playing with Pat Metheny and Myra Melford, eventually becoming a University of Washington professor. Speed played with Tim Berne and The Claudia Quintet before joining The Bad Plus. Jim Black helmed several different acts, including one with Nels Cline and Berne. And Sverrisson remains one of the busiest bassists in jazz and experimental music, trotting the globe and genres alike. But in April 2026, they reunited for a celebrated five-city run, capturing six new songs in the process. Yeah NO always blurred boundaries and crossed stylistic lines, work that now seems prescient and especially relevant. “It vibrated with an intensity that rang familiar, without feeling at all like a retread,” Nate Chinen wrote of those dates. “The band is simply cooking.”