The world’s pause caused by the Covid-19 pandemic created rifts in regular patterns and collaborations. Pianist Anat Fort found herself effectively separated from her regular trio of bassist Gary Wong and Robert Schneider for the first time in the trio’s 20 years of existence.

Fort, Wong, and Schneider initially came together as a trio in 1999. Over the following two decades, the trio recorded celebrated albums for ECM and Sunnyside Records. After their most recent effort, Colour (Sunnyside, 2018), the group had found themselves in another period of activity and growth. This was quickly smothered by the pandemic, forcing the trio mates to retire to their homes in Israel, Los Angeles, and Germany.

IIn the Spring of 2022 Fort and the trio were invited to perform at the BMW Welt Jazz Awards in Munich, Germany. The performance offered an amazing opportunity to get the band together, all expenses paid. Fort immediately booked studio time in Berlin just after the Awards.

Fort asked engineer Nanni Johansson to leave the mics on to capture whatever the trio decided to put down in the EBS and Hansa Studios. They began to play for hours, playing freely at first and then suggesting pieces from their vast repertoire and some off-the-cuff covers, a practice that the group never employed before. Anat Fort and her trio celebrate reuniting after years of separation on their new recording, The Berlin Sessions. In doing so, the trio touch on some elements in the music that they hadn’t normally touched to stunningly, unique effect