Stephen Byth – Growth in Stasis
Released 16 October 2026, via CD and digital
Stephen Byth - tenor saxophone, clarinet, flute, bass clarinet
Yessaï Karapetian - piano, synthesizers
Simón Willson - bass
Angus Mason - drums
Alexandra Ridout - trumpet
Alfredo Colón - alto saxophone
Caleb Smith - trombone
John Ellis - bass clarinet
Melbourne-born, New York City-based saxophonist and composer Stephen Byth returns with Growth in Stasis, an emotionally expansive new album exploring the tensions that define contemporary life.
Joined by a formidable New York quartet, Yessaï Karapetian (piano, synthesizers), Simón Willson (bass), and Angus Mason (drums), Byth presents music that balances lyrical beauty with searching intensity, drawing together contemporary jazz improvisation, cinematic orchestration, electronic textures, and open-ended collective interplay.
Formed in early 2025 after a series of performances across New York City, the quartet developed the album’s material through the immediacy of live performance before entering the studio. Recorded at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Queens, Growth in Stasis features ten compositions that navigate the space between opposing forces: hope and melancholy, stability and risk, clarity and confusion. Tracks such as All is Not Lost, New Eyes, Time is Now, and the sweeping title work each examine moments of personal and collective transformation, while an expanded horn section featuring Alexandra Ridout, Alfredo Colón, Caleb Smith, and John Ellis adds colour and depth to selected pieces.
The album is rooted in an idea that has stayed with Byth since a workshop with his longtime hero Wayne Shorter. “I once asked Wayne, ‘How do you turn poison into medicine through your music?’ His response, ‘The poison is the medicine,’ has stayed with me ever since,” he recalls. “This album lives in that idea: that struggle, friction and uncertainty are not obstacles to meaning, but the very source of it.” Written on the morning of Shorter’s passing, The Light in Everything stands as both tribute and call to action, while the title composition unfolds as the album’s most ambitious piece, allowing recurring themes to evolve through shifting harmonic worlds.
Having relocated to New York, Byth has quickly established himself within one of the world’s most active creative music communities while continuing to build on the foundations of Australia’s contemporary jazz scene. Inspired equally by John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Melissa Aldana, Brian Blade, Andrea Keller and Olivier Messiaen, his music reveals new layers with every listen. With Growth in Stasis, Stephen Byth delivers a compelling sophomore statement, an album that embraces contradiction not as something to resolve, but as the essential condition for growth, creativity and human connection.
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Alexandra Ridout - trumpet [4,6,8,9]
Alfredo Colón - alto saxophone [4,6,8,9]
Caleb Smith - trombone [4,6,8,9]
John Ellis - bass clarinet [4,6,8,9]
All compositions by Stephen Byth (APRA AMCOS)
Produced by Stephen Byth
Recorded at Samurai Hotel Recording Studio in Astoria, Queens on October 27th, 2025 by David Stoller
Additional recording at 434 Studios in Brooklyn, NY
Mixing and mastering by Jeremy Loucas at Sear Sound in Manhattan, NY