Personal Statements on the Saxophone (trio & solo)

Eric Alexander began playing his tenor saxophone over three decades ago as a freshman in college (he had started on clarinet then moved to alto sax in high school) and, judging by his constant touring and ever-growing discography, has no intention of stopping.  After transferring to William Paterson College in New Jersey, he came into contact with pianist/educator Harold Mabern (a relationship that continues to this day) and studied with Joe Lovano and Rufus Reid (and a host of other fine musicians. After college, he moved to Chicago, began a recording career (his 1992 debut, "Straight Up", was issued by Delmark Records) and soon began a career that has taken him around the world.

"Leap of Faith" is Alexander's debut for Giant Step Arts, the new label started by Jimmy and Dena Katz. For long-time fans of the saxophonist, it's one of the few opportunities to hear him moving away from the hard-bop sounds that have been his bread-and-butter over the decades.  In fact, on the opening two tracks ("Luquitas" and "Mars"), one can hear the influence of John Coltrane in his powerful phrases and gutsy sounds.  Plus, this s a trio date - no piano (save for the saxophonist's piano chords on "Corazon Perdido") - and that "freedom" helps to open new avenues for Alexander's music.  Joining him on this journey are bassist Doug Weiss (a fellow William Paterson grad whose career has seen him work with artists such as Pete Seeger, Brian Blade, Lizz Wright, George Coleman, and many more) and drummer Johnathan Blake.

Recorded live at The Jazz Gallery in New York City, the music often crackles with great energy.  The trio digs into "Hard Blues"; not the Julius Hemphill tune but a short yet equally powerful blues "shout" that opens with Alexander, solo, pushing quite hard.  "Big Richard" is also a ballad, a piece that the saxophonist wrote for his father who had recently passed.  This piece is quite gentle, the saxophone traveling over the melodic bass lines and Blake's active yet sensitive brush work.  There's more than a touch of the blues here as well yet the overall feel is one of reflection and memory.

Photo: Jimmy & Dena Katz

And there's fire - "Frenzy" lives up to its as the rhythm section sets a torrid pace for Alexander to push against and to ride atop.  The saxophonist often stays in the tenor's mid-range but he certainly plays with great passion.  He utilizes a wider range on "Mars" and it's a joy to hear how Blake's rampaging drums push the saxophonist to let loose.  Alexander is in quite the playful mood and infuses the piece with the joy of playing.

"Second Impression", the longest track on the program (13:28). closes the album with more energy.  A bit of Sonny Rollins, some more Coltrane, Don Byas, Hank Mobley - pick whoever you choose - Alexander flies high, soaring over the powerful rhythm section (dig Weiss's rollicking bass lines and Blake's insistent drive). He plays and plays, never tires, for the entire piece. It's quite the performance. Play the track loud and imagine the excitement of being in the audience as the trio blazes its way.

"Leap of Faith" is quite the leap for Eric Alexander. Even if you have any or many of his albums, you know he always plays with great energy and thought. Yet, this album, this trio, this music, this setting, opens his big sounds even more, his ideas and phrases often leaping with joy, his ballads even more emotional.  Kudos to Doug Weiss and Jonathan Blake for their splendid work and to Jimmy & Dena Katz for creating the platform for Alexander to make such passionate music.

For more information, go to www.giantsteparts.org/eric-alexander or to www.ericalexandermusic.com.

The album will be issued on May 17.  In the meantime, here's the opening track:

Photo: Russ Rowland

Alto saxophonist, pianist, and composer Michaël Attias, born in Haifa, Israel, and raised in Paris, France, has quite the biography. His parents moved the family to Minneapolis, MN, when he was nine and exposed him to all sorts of music including recordings by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Ornette Coleman. Coleman's eclectic work led the 15-year old Attias to the alto saxophone and he began a life-long journey that took him back to Paris for college, to Connecticut to study at Wesleyan University, and onto New York City and collaborations with Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Paul Motian, and many others.  As a leader, he has worked and recorded with trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist John Hébert, drummers Tom Rainey, Nasheet Waits, and Satoshi Takeishi, plus pianists Aruàn Ortiz and Matt Mitchell - many of his albums can be found on the Clean Feed label.

"Échos la Nuit" (released on bassist Adam Hopkins' Out of Your Head Records) is his first solo album. Recorded in one day (in just over an hour!) in a French studio, Attias plays alto sax and piano at the same time; every once in a while, he utilizes the inside of the latter to help enhance the sound of the former.  What stands out is how quiet the music is. The opener "Echoes: I - Mauve" sets the tone for the program with its combination of long, winding, alto sax phrases and spare piano accompaniment. The pictures Attias paints often are ethereal yet the attentive listener can intuit that while he is searching as he plays, the music tells stories have deeper meaning.  "Grass" blends long breathy saxophone notes and silence to evoke a quiet night, as if the musician is staring across a big field at the distance.  "Autumn I" and "Autumn II", with the piano and saxophone often in unison, has the simple yet emotional feel of composers Erik Satie and Morton Feldman.

Still, one Attias has distilled this music from his years traveling the world as well as the work he has done composing for theater.  The dramatic circular lines and popping stops of the saxophone on "Rue Oberkampf" have an undeniable energy while the deep piano notes  mixed with the airy alto sax melodies on "Sea In The Dark" have a stillness that is sheer poetry.

With "Échos la Nuit", Michaël Attias has invited the listener into his world of creativity, a world of (mostly) calm exploration mixed with wonder.  Just as the music does not hurry or even scurry, take your time to allow the sounds to float in your room and into your mind. Those sounds have the clarity of an ECM recording and an emotional pull that keeps one returning to these songs time and again with renewed wonder.

For more information, go to www.outofyourheadrecords.com/michael-attias.

Here's a track to whet your appetite:

Johnathan Blake + Chris Potter Reach For The Heights

Photo: Jimmy & Dena Katz

Drummer and composer Johnathan Blake, son of the late violinist John Blake, Jr. (1947-2014), has been a professional musician for over two decades. He has toured with the Tom Harrell Quintet, the Mingus Big Band, and the Kenny Barron Trio - Blake's discography also includes two albums as a leader (Sunnyside and Criss Cross Jazz) and many, many, more (including CDs by Russell Malone, The Black Art Jazz Collective, Omar Vital, and David Berkman).

Giant Step Arts

His third album, a two CD set, is a live date recorded over two nights at The Jazz Gallery in January of 2018 for Jimmy & Dena Katz's Giant Step Arts label.  Dubbed "Trion", the word comes from the study of physics and is defined as "a singlet state from from three atoms of different colors."  In the case of this recording, the three "atoms" are Blake, Chris Potter (tenor saxophone), and Linda May Han Oh (bass).  The drummer has worked with both musicians on numerous occasions and you can hear that in their interactions, their mutual trust, and willingness to put all of themselves into this project.  Both discs open with drum solos - Blake is setting the tone, letting one know these songs are built from the rhythm up.  The next track, "Synchronicity 1" (yes, the Sting tune) opens with an unaccompanied tenor sax solo: once Ms. Oh and Blake enter, the song is taken for quite a ride.  Pay attention to the melodies and rhythm coming from the bass and the drummer's fiery barrage, all of which push Potter to an intense solo.  The bassist plays a hardy solo over insistent drums and, then, then the sax "trades 4s" with Blake.  The next three tracks come from bassists - Ms. Oh's "Trope (Linda Intro)" and "Trope", plus "One For Honor" from the pen of Charles Fambrough which the bassist recorded in 1991 with a band that included Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, Kenny Kirkland, and Jeff "Tain" Watts.  Blake, Ms. Oh, and Potter play the piece with tremendous energy with the saxophonist delivering a solo with the thunder of John Coltrane. Blake's "No Bebop Daddy" closes disk one. It's quite a melodic journey for the bassist and saxophonist while the drummer dances below them.

Photo: Jimmy Katz

After the delightful drum statement "Bedrum" opens disk two, the trio takes a wild ride through Potter's "Good Hope."  When this piece gets going, with the pounding drums, the rhythmic sax line, and Ms. Oh's solid bass, it's hard to sit still. There's definitely an African feel to this song and Blake takes advantage, telling his own story as he travels around his kit. Potter digs in on Charlie Parker's "Relaxing at the Camarillo", sounding more like Sonny Rollins and certainly not in a "relaxed" mode.  The bass and drums swing the daylights out of this track. The piece, actually the band's encore, was unplanned.  The drummer pays tribute to his father with "Blue Heart", a previously unrecorded from the elder Blake. The trio makes sure to pay attention to the melody, building both the tenor and bass solos from the handsome tune.  Disk two closes with the leader's "West Berkley St.", a real treat with its soulful melody (sounds like a melding of Smoky Robinson's easy style and Felix Cavaliere's "Groovin'"), is a showcase for Potter's tasty tenor (dig his quotes from other tunes).

Listening to "Trion" is like sitting in the front row of The Jazz Gallery. The excellent sound quality and these superb performances reminds one of the power of creative music and improvisation, especially in a live session.  Johnathan Blake, Chris Potter, and Linda May Han Oh play with fire and delight.  And, this set is all about playing (in all the positive senses of the word).  Johnathan Blake continues to grow as a musician, composer, leader, and human being.  Play it loud and enjoy!

For more information, go to www.johnathanblake.com.

Here's the Sting tune (arrangement by Chris Potter):

After three albums on ECM, Chris Potter moves to Edition Records for his latest album.  The title "Circuits" is your first hint that this will be a much different aural experience.  Look at the credits and you'l see that besides tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinets, and flutes, Potter also contributes keyboards, sampler, guitar, and piano.  He's joined by James Francies on piano, organ, and synth, Linley Marthe (electric bass on four tracks), and drummer Eric Harland. The drummer, a native of the Houston, Texas, music scene as is the 24-year old Francies, really is the heartbeat of this music. Combined with Potter's melodies and the various keyboards, this is one of the better "fusion" albums I've heard in a while.

With the addition of Marthe (who played with Joe Zawinul in his later years), this music hearkens back to the Austrian-born keyboard master's music as well as Wayne Shorter's fusion albums from the 1990. Potter's music actually has a deeper groove.  Listen to "The Nerve", dig the Middle-Eastern feel, especially at the opening with the overdubbed flutes but don't ignore the elastic electric bass lines and Francies's delightful piano solo.  There's a hint of Jimmy Guiffre in the unaccompanied bass clarinet opening of "Kuotomé" and a delightful sensuality in Marthe's bass lines and percussion.  Again, the leader overdubs flutes to flesh out the melody lines.  The bassist also appears on the title track, a piece that roars out of the speakers and surges forward on a rhythmic melody line (note the bass clarinet holding down the bass line as Marthe dances along with the keyboard).  Potter and Harland engage in a delightful give-and-take during the leader's solo.  After those two raise the temperature, the drummer and Francies spar and party as the latter unleashes an excellent synth solo.

Photo: Dave Stapleton

Potter moves to soprano saxophone for "Queens of Brooklyn", a lovely ballad where the leader's bass clarinet plays the counterpoint.  The melody then is taken up by multiple flutes (note the dynamic cymbal playing) before the soprano retakes the lead.  But, this group seems to be "built for speed" as the next tune, "Exclamation", illustrates.  Here, the saxophones and layered synths play a rapid-fire melody a la Charlie Parker while Marthe and Harland parry beneath.  For the tenor solo, the rhythm section - minus Francies - go all out, creating an intensity that is breath-taking and gooses Potter higher and higher.  The electric piano enters adding more fire to this inferno, leading to an amazing synth solo. The buildup to the finish just might shatter glass.

Photo: Dave Stapleton

The album closes with "Pressed For Time": just listen to the incredible pace that Harland sets - nothing fancy, mind you, just a beat that is so irresistible you can't get enough. Again, the drummer's intensity give the leader the power to unleash a solo that dives and roars, wailing away but never losing control.  Francies's solo gives Harland license to go in several different directions, playing with the beat and how he accents them.  Have to say, I was laughing at the sheer audacity of how far the trio is able to take this music. And, when it's over, you want more. While the music is not "free", the joy of this sound, this band, is freeing. Freeing for the musicians and for the attentive audience.

"Circuits" is a treat for those who love music with muscle, an intelligently arranged and orchestrated program that succeeds because the solos and the interactions keep the listener at the edge of his/her seat.  The album is an impressive showcase for Chris Potter: his decision to include Eric Harland, James Francies, and Linley Marthe proves he's always moving forward, not one to settle into a genre or a groove.  We are the lucky ones - we get to enjoy the fruits of his ideas and their labors.

For more information, go to editionrecords.com/releases/chris-potter-circuits/.

Here's "Hold It" - hold on!