Abi Lee - Beyond, Below and Above Abi Lee

New York-based pianist and composer Abi Lee releases, Beyond, Below and Above, a fearless second album that explores the fertile space where composition and improvisation become inseparable.
Lee is joined by two of Australia's most adventurous improvisers - Julien Wilson (tenor and soprano saxophone) and Dylan van der Schyff (drums), presenting a trio built on deep listening, shared responsibility, and collective risk-taking. The album captures a band unafraid to leave the page behind, allowing instinct and interaction to shape every performance.
Originally developed as part of Lee's Honours research into structured improvisation, the trio formed in 2025 and quickly evolved through live performance before recording later that year. Rather than prescribing outcomes, Lee's compositions provide prompts and flexible structures that invite multiple musical pathways. Recorded in October 2025, Beyond, Below and Above documents that exhilarating process, balancing unusual compositional frameworks with spontaneous invention and the trio's remarkable conversational rapport.
Across nine compositions, the album traverses playful unison writing, free improvisation, delicate soundscapes and dynamic collective interplay. Pieces such as Gutsy pay homage to Ornette Coleman's angular lyricism, while Lowlands and Simple of the Complex explore emotional restraint and sonic atmosphere. Elsewhere, Trail Trial and Trapeze challenge the ensemble to instantly connect disparate musical ideas, creating performances that feel simultaneously composed and discovered in the moment.
Having been born in South Korea, raised in New Zealand, Abi Lee moved to Australia in 2022, rapidly emerging as one of the country's most exciting new improvising voices. Praised by pianist Andrea Keller for her "deep commitment to improvisation," Lee has performed at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, RISING, Phoenix Central Park and the Melbourne International Women's Jazz Festival, while receiving the Will Poskitt Piano Scholarship, the Graham Coyle Prize and the Ronald William Capron Prize. Beyond, Below and Above captures a pivotal moment in her artistic journey-her final months in Melbourne before relocating to New York to undertake a Masters degree - and introduces a trio whose fearless curiosity, trust and spontaneity point toward an exciting future for contemporary improvised music.