LEITER is proud to announce the debut release by Blair / Huber, a duo formed by award-winning saxophonist, Darius Blair (23), and distinguished guitarist Niko Huber (25). Nodding astutely to illustrious elders as well as the likes of Charlie Hunter, Julian Lage and Snarky Puppy’s Michael League and Bill Lawrence, they’re part of an increasingly flourishing German jazz scene, not least in their home city, Frankfurt. Discreetly inventive, with an admirably spartan setup nonetheless suffused with warmth, their combination of instruments is both uncanny and captivating. Recorded with Nicolas Butka at Soultize Studios, Offenbach, their four track EP, ‘IN A NEW ORDER’, will be available via all digital platforms from March 20, 2026. It’s preceded by a first taste, ‘NOTHING PERSONAL’, out now.

Friends for well over a decade, Blair’s and Huber’s decision to write and perform together – without anyone else – was taken early on in the pandemic. Though in a sense it had been a long time coming, they swiftly realised they’d made a bold, ambitious choice. Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman’s ‘Nearness’ provided useful guidance in “how to blend two lines of melodies together,” but Huber still remembers his concerns about the limitations the pair had inadvertently imposed. “At the beginning it was pretty hard,” he admits. “But we started to relax and enjoy all the space without needing to fill it up.” Blair, too, recalls having to adapt. “As a player, it was a unfamiliar situation sonically. None of the typical jazz tricks of playing this or that lick worked. I started to look for other people playing in this formation, and I really didn’t find a lot. That alone made it an interesting challenge.”

It’s their embrace of ‘space’ that characterises the singular sound of Blair / Huber. On the hushed ‘NO GROUND’, Blair’s deceptively minimalist, understated melody is ultimately entwined around itself as much as Huber’s leisurely, tremulous chords. ‘NOTHING PERSONAL’ starts more playfully before they piece together what becomes an effortless showcase for Blair’s serene and fluid craft. In turn, ‘ROOM TO ROOM’ finds Huber casting balmy spells much in the manner of Vini Reilly’s first Durutti Column albums, only to be roused by Huber’s elegant runs and flourishes, while the languid title track, again demonstrating their intuitive interplay, epitomises their exemplary, graceful restraint.

‘IN A NEW ORDER’ marks two remarkable performers pooling their talents, and arguably its arrival was merely a matter of time. In fact, the only thing more inevitable than their paring things down to a duo is that they’d end up playing music in the first place. Growing up near Frankfurt – Huber in Rodgau, Blair in Maintal – it always played a part in their happy, if separate childhoods, and for Huber, the die was cast early, with his father a musician himself. Blair’s father also played a defining role, though this time as a soul- and gospel-loving preacher with a Grover Washington Jr. LP that turned the six-year-old on to the saxophone. Too small for the instrument, he began on the recorder, then turned to the clarinet, but even this afforded him his first tastes of performance with appearances on the church’s stage. By the time he was a teenager, he’d formed his first band, spurred on by the gift of a Branford Marsalis masterclass.

Huber’s choice of instrument came down to an additional, fortuitous circumstance. Since 1996, his father’s been better known as the founder of Nik Huber Guitars, selling its handcrafted instruments to the likes of Foo Fighters’ Nate Mendel, The Hives’ Pelle Almqvist and Andy Allo from Prince’s New Power Generation. “I started playing drums about three,” Niko smiles, “but of course I had to start guitar. Since then, I’ve done more or less nothing else. I had my first band around seven and started playing live shows when I was eight. I was learning a lot about instruments, too, and my dad also taught me about alternative and classic rock, from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath.”

As well as meeting prominent clients – Dave Grohl once spent an hour teaching him riffs before Huber had even reached his teens – he also began attending the gigs his father played at weekends. “I’d sit behind his amp,” he remembers, “watching closely and taking notes.” The guitar-maker also used music as a lure to help his son survive his school years. “I was always up to no good,” he chuckles. “I was like, ‘I’m going to be a musician anyway’. So, each week that I didn’t start any trouble, he’d reward me with a record, which meant a load of The Beatles, but sooner or later, thanks to my teacher, I got all these jazz records too.”

When they finally met, after being accepted into the Hessen’s State Youth Jazz Orchestra, Blair and Huber were still kids. There, their growing mutual interests led them to its renowned Kicks and Sticks Big Band, and if their paths had been converging before they united, they now simultaneously gravitated towards the same deep well as further studies broadened their horizons. For Huber, who also delved into indie, his interest in jazz derived, at least partially, as a rebellion against his rockist roots. “I started to push things,” he laughs. “The weirder the solo, the weirder the sound, the better.” Meanwhile, Blair, who’d strayed from soul jazz towards hip hop, enrolled at Berlin’s Jazz Institute and began crate-digging beyond John Coltrane and Charlie Parker.

By 2018, they were also playing together in other line-ups, most notably Count Spacey, a quintet with an impressive reputation for a style dubbed ‘jazz reloaded’, and they cultivated yet more projects apart. Huber still fronts Bird’s View, an alt. rock band, and Blair plays a vital role in the unconventional, sophisticated rhythms of Discovery Collective, not to mention his Darius Blair Quartett. In 2020, he became the youngest recipient of the Frankfurt Jazz Scholarship before winning 1st Prize at Future Sounds two years later.

Now, having bewitched audiences from clubs to castles, Blair / Huber’s journey culminates with ‘IN A NEW ORDER’, a formal introduction to their combined powers. Thanks to their determination to fixate on an idea’s essence instead of indulging their unquestionably versatile skills, it’s also the first milestone in an exciting new adventure, maybe for jazz as much as them. With Blair’s flair for an indelible tune – provoked by, among other passions, his love for Donny Hathaway’s and Curtis Mayfield’s vocal phrasings – interwoven with Huber’s unique guitar style (one surprisingly wary of effects pedals, it’s worth adding), they sound quite unlike anyone else. “Our approach became very minimalist,” Blair summarises. “What does a song need to be a song? Let’s not play anything more. We didn’t want to ruin this purity.” All that remains is ‘IN A NEW ORDER’.