Darius Brubeck Quartet Releases Live Again From Palermo Concerts

The Darius Brubeck Quartet has released Live Again on Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, on Gathering Forces/ECN Music in digital and CD formats. According to the label's release page, the album follows 2019's Live in Poland and captures the pianist's long-running UK quartet — Dave O'Higgins on saxophone, Matt Ridley on double bass and Wesley Gibbens on drums — in performance rather than in a studio. Jazz Views dated its review Nov. 5; UK Jazz News published a John Fordham interview with Brubeck on Nov. 3 ahead of street date.

ECN Music and Jazz Views place the bulk of the recording at Real Teatro di Santa Cecilia in Palermo, Italy, during concerts from Nov. 27–30, 2025. One additional piece, "Somebody in Seoul," was recorded in 2026 at the Menuhin Hall in Cobham, Surrey. The label frames the set as a document of a band that has played together for 20 years, arguing that touring chemistry and audience presence are integral to the music. Catalogue number is listed as GF008D/CD.

The repertoire mixes new Brubeck compositions with pieces that map different chapters of his life. "Playing the Changes" was written for the documentary Playing the Changes: Tracking Darius Brubeck; "Autumn Elegy" was composed shortly before the Palermo trip; "Brexit Blues" began as "At Sixes and Sevens" during the UK's Brexit debates. "Prelude & Funque" joins Bach's Prelude No. 20 in A minor with Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," while "Somebody in Seoul" sets an Arirang-inspired melody against familiar jazz changes. "Transkei," a piano-and-drums duet with South African-born Gibbens, revisits a composition Brubeck previously recorded with the late Lulu Gontsana on Still On My Mind (2003). Jazz Views also notes Ridley's solo opener "Matt's Different Views," O'Higgins's solo feature "Searching For…" and "SLEE," named after the initials of Brubeck's first great-grandchild.

Brubeck, eldest son of Dave Brubeck, has lived and taught extensively in South Africa and for years has led this UK quartet alongside his brothers' Brubeck Brothers projects. In the UK Jazz News interview he stressed communication over virtuoso display and said the Palermo residency — in a hall with music-making roots dating to 1692 — made the next live album obvious once enough unrecorded music had accumulated. The quartet launches the album at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London on Wednesday, Nov. 11, as listed on dariusbrubeck.com and restated by ECN and Jazz Views.

For listeners following live-document releases and UK working bands, Live Again is a release-day story with a clear primary (ECN/Gathering Forces), independent review coverage and a club launch five days later — not a studio reinvention of the Brubeck family brand so much as a working quartet caught in a resonant room.