Two alto saxophones, bass, drums - that seems rather a daring line-up that Nat Su and Gabriel Dalvit chose for their group Straymonk when they presented their homage to Billy Strayhorn and Thelonious Monk ten years ago. Today, after ten years, the formation still exists; after a CD with the music of Charles Mingus, there is another one with compositions by Nat Su, in the same format but with a different rhythm section (Dominique Girod on bass, Jonas Ruther on drums). Called “Pling”, certainly a high point in Swiss jazz last year, oh what: an effortless masterpiece far beyond that. Two altos, which are initially reminiscent of the saxophone battles of yesteryear —"Phil [Woods] and [Gene] Quill," "Tough Tenors" (Lockjaw Davis / Johnny Griffin) and many more.

Alone, Straymonk pursues the opposite of such sporty muscle games, orients himself more on the cool dialogues of Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, or, in the transparency of the piano-less quartet sound, on the quartets of Chet Baker (albeit with a much more powerful rhythm section). I think I can hear another echo, especially in the slow, ballad-like pieces that of Ornette Coleman. His “Lonely Woman”, for example, is a refutation of the destructive free jazz image that Orthodox had long attached to Ornette. Su and Girod are no different.

Schoolchildren Dalvit and Su put their heads high, where freedom is probably limitless, but stand with their feet in a jazz tradition that is based on structure and harmony and does not despise the crucial old quality of swing. Su and Dalvit are both improvisers, if they break away from intimate unison and subtle duets into soloism at all, who do not use the templates as a pretext for noodles, but instead form narratives with their own logic. This creates a new surprising, but immediately understandable music that is neither traditional nor avant-garde. Or both at the same time.

—Peter Rüedi, Jazzlinks