For those unaware, pitch and rhythm are fundamental building blocks of music, but what about the third element in the name of the ever-growing improvisational ensemble Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness?

For the band’s co-founders, tenor saxophonist Tony Jones and violinist Charlie Burnham, consciousness is perhaps the most essential, if elusive, factor in creating harmonious sounds in the moment.

“Both Tony and I are Interested in keeping our spiritual selves vital,” says Burnham, whose expressive violin has been a key voice in recordings by James Blood Ulmer, Cassandra Wilson, Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra and Living Colour, among many others.

“One of the things that drew me and Charlie together is that we’re both Buddhists, although from different traditions,” adds Jones, a longtime collaborator with multi-instrumentalist who has also worked with Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Muhal Richard Abrams, Joseph Jarman and others. “It’s just a part of who we are. If it didn’t become part of the music, that would have to mean we were consciously avoiding it.”

1. I Shall Not Want
2. The Beginning of the Universe
3. Tiny Little Inkling
4. Kush
5. Fundamental Blue
6. Trouble
7. Running in the Darkness
8. Whose Tears Are These
9. This Herein Goes Nowhere
10. Psalm for a Shared Tomorrow
11. Shadow Box
12. Prepare for Refuge

In all of its formations, Pitch, Rhythm, and Consciousness is a happy reunion of old friends relishing the opportunity to make beautiful sounds together, and thus this new recording opens on the breathy I Shall Not Want and the atmospherically-charged The Beginning of the Universe and then we get given the intricately sculpted Tiny Little Inkling, an earnest yearn that drives Kush, and both the emotive Fundamental Blue and the joyfully playful Trouble.

Along next is the languishing Running in the Darkness and the impassioned Whose Tears Are These and they are in turn backed seamlessly by the empowered This Herein Goes Nowhere, the expressive Psalm for a Shared Tomorrow, the music rounding out on the quietly formed Shadow Box, closing on the swirling Prepare for Refuge.

Nowhere has the band’s spiritual consciousness been more evident than on its stirring new album, Sextet. Out April 22nd, 2025 via Reva Records, the session deviated somewhat from the group’s past dedication to wholly free improvisation, instead drawing inspiration from a variety of wisdom traditions – Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Taoist, Hindu, etc.

The results are profound and spirited, exulting in spontaneous creation while delving deep into a wellspring of emotions and thought.