Jazz
Hexagonal Records · 5 June 2026
“We Were Together, I Forget the Rest” is the new album by pianist John Donaldson, released by Hexagonal Records (catalogue number HRCD 102) on CD and digitally. The artist’s Bandcamp lists it as released on 5 June 2026. It has seven tracks, from “Prayer for Tomorrow” to “New Dawn”, and according to the CD notes it was recorded on 3 and 4 September 2025 at Real World Studios. The album is dedicated to the memory of Agatha Coffey, who also gives her name to the second track, “Agatha’s Song”.
Alongside Donaldson are vocalists Norma Winstone and Rebecka Edlund, Rob Luft on guitar, Tom Mason on bass, Jeff Ballard on drums, Iain Ballamy on saxophones and Graeme Flowers on trumpet. According to the Bandcamp track credits, the trumpet only appears on “Prayer for Tomorrow” and “Agatha’s Song”, Edlund sings alone on “Chanterelle” and Winstone on “Into the Night”. The biography of the Hexagonal sextet, in which Donaldson plays piano, notes that in his California years he played with Jeff Ballard and that in England he has worked with Norma Winstone. His previous album on Bandcamp is “Music Box” (2018), a trio with Oli Hayhurst and Asaf Sirkis.
Text by Aina Torrents