Two central concerts in my early listening to jazz were by the World Saxophone Quartet at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco in 1984 and 1985. And in 2024, I saw the Austrian saxophone quartet Saxofour at the Tinguely Museum in Basel. Last night, though, I saw the Vertigo Trombone Quartet at the Bird's Eye in Basel: Bernhard Bamert, Andreas Tschopp, Nils Wogram, and Jan Schreiner (on bass trombone). In wide-ranging, beautiful, and often humorous compositions by all four members, who each played a generous share of superb solos, the group contrasted legato textures with staccato passages and went through many familiar and unfamiliar sounds that trombones can make. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 6 February 2026)