Description
The Cleveland-born tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano has a big, full-throated sound that you can’t learn in school. It only comes from years of gigging and working as a sideman and as a leader; he’s released a number of critically-acclaimed records and played with a lot of superstars. But if you want to get Joe Lovano “unplugged,” this is the CD to get. It his third recorded performance from New York’s fabled Village Vanguard jazz club, at it features Lovano fronting a spirited nonet. The nine pieces combine the grand sound of the big band with the improvisational flexibility of a small combo. This group, which recorded on Lovano’s studio release, 52nd Street Themes, features Boston’s tenor sax phenom George Garzone, trumpeter Barry Ries, pianist John Hicks and drummer Lewis Nash. With Lovano’s soulful and silken sax out in front, they breath new, post-bop life into Tadd Dameron’s “Focus” and Good Bait,” John Coltrane’s “After the Rain,” and Duke Ellington’s lovely ballad, “My Little Brown Book.” A florid reading of the pop song “Laura” and the avant-garde-oriented “One This Day,” which was based on Coltrane’s “Ascension” and composed in memory of the great drum master Billy Higgins, features and intesnse “horn discussion,” and shows Joe Lovano’s mastery of his instrument and the idiom we call jazz. –Eugene Holley, Jr.
