Ralph Alessi records an album with his brother for the first time

Trumpet runs in the Alessi family like a surname. Ralph’s Sicilian grandfather and his father both held the principal trumpet chair at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York, and both were named Joseph. That name went to Ralph’s older brother — Ralph arrived too late to inherit it. What he got instead was the trumpet.

The older brother also ended up playing brass, just a different one, in a different hall: trombone, principal chair, New York Philharmonic, where the classical schedule doesn’t leave much room for side projects. The two had never recorded together. On Alessi’s new album, A Sun That Never Sets, that changes — in the chair where a saxophone used to sit, Joseph’s trombone sits instead.

They only started playing together in earnest over the past decade, and almost by accident: Joseph sat in on one of Ralph’s lectures at the University of Nevada, Reno, and stayed to play. Writing for trombone, Ralph says, was 'uncharted waters through and through' — none of his previous records had used the instrument, and this time the writing had to account for one specific player, not an abstract horn.

The result is eleven pieces where trumpet and trombone sometimes finish each other’s phrases and sometimes collide at an angle. 'Relaxed Misery' opens with the brothers improvising loosely together before Ralph’s solo takes off, pushed along by John Hébert’s bass. 'Nothing Is Dead' opens on Ches Smith’s vibraphone, struck on every first beat, before he eases into softer cymbal work. On 'Of Trees' the brothers lock into one tight, syncopated unit.

Asked about the band, Ralph keeps it short: 'Everybody’s just so strong, and very little, if anything, ever has to be said — which is what I prefer.' After a decade of playing together only occasionally, the brothers’ shared voice has become part of the quintet’s structure.