New from Royal Academy of Music graduate alto saxophonist Donovan Haffner playing his originals. Arranged in a studio album setting for guitar, piano, bass and drums it’s a group that has been playing together for around 6 years.
Tunes are quite mournful and bluesy and there’s a lot of personality in the alto sound. Final track ‘Step Aside,’ however, is far more positive and optimistic sounding.
I’m not sure if there really is a need to provide short introductions for both the track called ‘The Writer’ and the title track. Because you can quite easily jump into both without these preambles. Small point.
Gravitating towards bop influenced balladic material almost entirely there’s a certain acoustic jazz nostalgia in the writing and a lot of tristesse. I liked pianist Jay Verma’s role on ‘D Tune’ a lot. And when Haffner breaks loose a little more as on ‘The Lone Wolf’ it’s more engaging.
If you appreciate US saxists Immanuel Wilkins and Wilkins’ great influence Kenny Garrett then Donovan will probably be up your street.
Completing the sound here are guitarist Francisco Garcia de Paredes, double bassist Harry Pearce and drummer Harry Ling.
The most convincing track both in performance and for the writing is ‘Discovering the Truth’ which sounds like a lost standard. The bar is set high throughout on this stirring start.
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