Tenor saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer Hillai Govreen will release her bold new recording Every Other Now on June 20, 2025 via Fresh Sound’s New Talent imprint. Written in close partnership with bassist-composer Ben Meigners, the nine-track album bottles the electricity of Govreen’s live sets while unveiling a fresh palette of original music shaped by two rhythm sections, twin pianists, and a cohort of revered New York improvisers.
Recorded at EastSide Sound and co-produced by Govreen and Meigners, Every Other Now features:
Hillai Govreen – tenor saxophone, clarinet
Noah Stoneman – piano, Fender Rhodes (tracks 1-4, 8, 9)
Eden Ladin – piano, synthesizer (tracks 5-6)
Steve Cardenas – guitar (tracks 1-3, 5-6)
Ben Meigners – upright and electric bass
Eric McPherson – drums (tracks 1-3, 5-7, 9)
William West – drums (tracks 4, 8)
Café Da Silva – percussion (tracks 3-4, 8)
Greg Glassman – trumpet (track 8)
“From the first down-beat I knew this music was new,” recalls Smalls Jazz Club founder Mitch Borden, who penned the album notes. “Audience members leaned forward, hanging on the wild notes, sensing something great was about to go down.” That raw excitement—what Borden calls “streetwise and intuitive… fashioned by bare passion and powerful imagination”—courses through the record, balancing incisive writing with open-air improvisation.
A Portrait of the Artist
Born in Israel and now based in New York City, Hillai Govreen has quickly emerged as an adventurous voice on both saxophone and clarinet. A 2020 honors graduate of The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, she studied under luminaries such as Anat Cohen, Billy Harper, Chris Cheek, and Reggie Workman. Govreen’s résumé already includes shared stages or studio time with George Cables, Allison Miller, Arturo O’Farrill, Steve Cardenas, and the late Israeli free-jazz icon Harold Rubin, as well as performances at Dizzy’s Club, Birdland, Smalls, Mezzrow, National Sawdust, and Ornithology.
Her 2021 debut, Allusions—an intimate duo with pianist Nitsan Kolko—won praise for its spontaneous conversation and myth-laced storytelling. With Every Other Now, Govreen scales up her vision, intertwining the lyric sweep of her clarinet with the muscular edge of tenor saxophone and a rhythm team steeped in the lineage of New York modern jazz.
Release Details
Every Other Now will be available worldwide on June 20, 2025 in digital and high-resolution streaming formats, with CD and limited-edition vinyl to follow later this year. Pre-save and pre-order links will be announced shortly via Fresh Sound and Hillai Govreen’s social platforms.
