Duo Improvisations

Ulysses Owens Jr., Christian Sands, and Sullivan Fortner

The inaugural release in the Madre Vaca Improvisation Series

Duo Improvisations brings together Grammy Award-winning drummer Ulysses Owens Jr., five-time Grammy-nominated pianist Christian Sands, and Grammy Award-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner for a collection of spontaneous musical dialogues.

Although each duo takes a different musical path, the album grows out of long-standing artistic relationships. Ulysses Owens Jr. and Sullivan Fortner have known one another since their student days—Fortner at Oberlin and Owens at Juilliard—and first recorded together on Theo Croker's debut album. Ulysses and Christian Sands also share a long musical history, including their work with Christian McBride, making these performances both a reunion and a fresh musical conversation.

Advance streaming link provided for presenters, venues, festivals, and industry partners.

The Madre Vaca Improvisation Series

Improvisation is composition at the moment of its creation. Form, harmony, and architecture are conceived and realized in the same breath.

The Madre Vaca Improvisation Series is dedicated to documenting this craft by bringing master musicians together without rehearsal and preserving the structures they build in real time. Each installment is a record of instantaneous design—music discovered, shaped, and completed as it unfolds.

The inaugural release documents the musical dialogue between Ulysses Owens Jr. and pianists Christian Sands and Sullivan Fortner—a study in restraint, risk, and shared invention.

Future installments will continue this exploration through new artistic collaborations, expanding a catalog devoted to improvisation as a complete creative practice.

Personnel

Ulysses Owens Jr. — drums
Christian Sands — piano
Sullivan Fortner — piano