Wistful and yearning – that’s Hopium, curious word (hope+opium= hopium), in a nutshell.
The latest from US saxophonist Dayna Stephens with a very supportive band who know his every move.
Playing his tunes they are not jarring at all harmonically but prove a bit too balladic overall. For material I prefer Gratitude and Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard from his back catalogue more.
That said drummer Greg Hutchinson – known for his work with Soweto Kinch on the saxist’s ingenious The Black Peril (and whom we saw live in the band of singer Sarah McKenzie at the Pizza Express Jazz Club) – does a lot of absorbing low profile things and the title track starts to become more engaging the longer Stephens solos egged on by a firm rhythmic springboard.
And the saxist is a passionate soloist.
Stephens, 46, who hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, studied at Berklee in Boston and later back on the West Coast at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, where he studied under Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Terence Blanchard.
Gratitude (2017), mentioned earlier, is an incredible album – it features Brad Mehldau, Julian Lage, Larry Grenadier and Eric Harland and is even more than the sum of these illustrious parts. Check out ‘Woodwide Waltz’ in particular.
Not as out there as James Brandon Lewis or in your face an interpreter as David Murray or Kamasi Washington but just as skilled as all these players as he ekes out new patterns and contours in his lines.
His timbre is velvety and personal and these are his big strengths.
It seems a bit brief – there are only 7 tracks and there’s a bit of padding (figuratively) like the a cappella solo at the beginning of ‘Occasionally Cynical.’
In the personnel is pianist Aaron Parks whose best work under his own name is still 2008’s Invisible Cinema. He contributes the tune ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland’ – the rest are Stephens originals.
And yet bassist Ben Street is far more interesting within the much better sonics and material of Billy Hart’s Just issued recently but still adds some great touches along the way.
Ultimately the album could do with more engaging tunes or a more varied presentation of pieces. But the brief manifestation of guitarist Charles Altura on the last track ‘As Truth Rises Above Power’ is a step in the right direction and points into a space future elaboration of which stylistically all concerned could certainly build on productively.
