Day & Taxi

Christoph Gallio maintained the Swiss jazz trio Day & Taxi as his chief recurring endeavor across the 1990s. Repeated personnel shifts hindered studio work, yielding just three albums during those years, yet the group attracted steady interest from avant-garde jazz listeners throughout Europe, America, and Japan, as repeated international tours confirm. Most of the pieces, written by Gallio, rely on spare arrangements that permit melodies to unfold without obstruction, in a manner recalling Steve Lacy, so the results remain both approachable and inventive.

Gallio launched Day & Taxi in 1988 as a quartet that included saxophonist Urs Blöchlinger. He had recently appeared in bassist Lindsay L. Cooper’s ensemble Idiomix, whose drummer was Dieter Ulrich. No recordings document this lineup, and Blöchlinger left soon afterward, placing Gallio in charge. The musicians played occasional concerts near Zürich, but Gallio’s extensive touring commitments with Certainty Sympathy, alongside Alan Zimmerlin and Matthew Ostrowski, kept Day & Taxi sidelined for several years.

Activity resumed in 1991 with a Swiss tour and a recording session that produced the trio’s debut album, All, issued on Gallio’s own Percaso imprint. Favorable response, including praise from drummer Milo Fine in Cadence, led to engagements in Russia and the Baltic States in 1993 plus appearances at numerous Canadian jazz festivals during the summer of 1994. The following year the trio performed only a few concerts, now featuring bassist Bruno Schneebeli and drummer Christian Wolfarth, yet ongoing lineup changes again stalled progress.

In 1997 Gallio rebuilt the trio with Ulrich and young Swiss bassist Dominique Girod. After several preparatory gigs to try out fresh material, the musicians completed a two-day studio session that resulted in the albums About, released in 1998 on Percaso, and Less and More, issued in 1999 on Unit. The group maintained a regular touring schedule for several years, reaching the U.S. in 1998, Italy in 1999, and Russia and Germany in 2000, sometimes with Wolfarth substituting. By mid-2001 Gallio had replaced both sidemen with bassist Daniel Studer, a regular collaborator of Giancarlo Schiaffini, and drummer Marco Käppelli.