TENOR saxophonist Rachel Musson grew up in Porthcawl, South Wales, where her father was a dentist/orthodontist and her mother a dental hygienist. She began on violin, then flute, and turned to saxophone at 14.

As a teenager, she was inspired by saxophonists Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane and jazzwomen Geri Allen, Nancy Wilson and Cassandra Wilson. Once a year, Porthcawl hosted the Glamorgan Jazz Summer School, when London-based jazz musicians would stay for two weeks.

“I went to a Steve Arguelles workshop which focused on free improvising. This sowed a seed,” she told me, “also sessions with Lol Coxhill, Mark Sanders and Caroline Kraabel. I started playing free properly though in my early thirties.”

“In 2020, 577 Records approached me about putting out nonet and solo albums. I intended to bring them out together, but the nonet record, I Went This Way, came out before the pandemic, and Dreamsing, the solo album, came out in 2021 as an echo of the nonet album.”

What kind of freedom does playing solo give, I ask her. “I've been asked to play solo a few times. It's not my natural habitat, but the challenge is good for me. I booked a studio for February 2000, then when the pandemic happened, I added tracks recorded at home. The album straddled two worlds. It felt quite a transitory time and I wasn't too sure how things would unfold.”

Did she miss her bandmates while making Dreamsing? “Yes! I feel quite alone playing solo, but it makes me hone in on what I want to play. But my heart lies in ensemble playing.”

I ask her about the slap-tongue passages in the tracks For Pauline and Dotses. They reminded me of veteran New Orleans clarinetist Joe Darensbourg, who used the same technique many decades ago. Does she see her music as born from its jazz beginnings, over a century ago?

“It's impossible to be anything else, as the beginnings have been passed on from generation to generation,” she said. “As for Dreamsing, I was not quite feeling I belonged in the world of jazz. I sensed that improvised music was a place where musicians from various genres would come and find freedom and develop a language to play together somewhere outside of shouldisms.”

What was it like for her, during those intense Covid months? “I went through various waves, from feeling that my music was really insignificant to feeling that it was the only thing that made sense to me. I did a lot of solo playing and recording, especially in Orphy Robinson and Co's online Freedom sessions.

“It’s made me more comfortable and able to take my time when playing solo, and also to want to broaden my creative output and become less reliant on only playing live with audiences. I’ve been developing my composition skills too. It feels like a consolidation rather than stepping in a new direction. It’s allowed new things to emerge.

“At the moment, I'm just enjoying playing with ensembles again like Shifa [with pianist Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders]. We've got gigs coming in Birmingham and Newcastle and it feels good to be back in my favourite venues that have pulled through, like Cafe Oto and Vortex. I'm constantly thinking about more composing, recording and grateful to have an Arts Council grant.”

As for Dreamsing, it's both creatively exuberant in its rampaging, pealing volleys of notes, and sometimes dolefully beautiful with moments of lyrical serenity and the pathos of alienation in words spilling over from I Went This Way.

“This is where the exiles live,” says Musson in the midst of her powerful soundscape, “there’s space here for the disenfranchised.”

Unique and stirring, it creates inspiring feelings of love and hope in your ears and in your heart.