More a 20th century kind of jazz album.
Tunes are saxist Chris Byars’. He’s 54, a New Yorker who as a child sang opera and then taking up sax in the 1980s studied at the Manhattan School of Music.
Byars has more than a dozen records already on Danish label SteepleChase and has along the way paid tribute to Duke Jordan and Gigi Gryce.
Very much a heritage bebop sound full of yeoman, modestly projected playing perfect for a jazz evening at the museum, ‘Re-solutions’ and ‘Blessing for Giacomo’ work best. It’s not about dazzling show off playing at all. Frolics are admittedly thin on the ground – earnest seriousness preferred! But as a collective the sound does infiltrate its charms into your cerebellum, amygdala and hippocampus readily enough without being at all tedious or buttonholing you into submission. The album was recorded just over a year ago at a Paramus studio in Bergen County, New Jersey.
Byars is also on the swinging and much frothier Neal Miner trio release Invisibility issued by Cory Weeds’ Cellar Music label last month. You can hear what Byars does as a player a lot more on that release. But for a clue to what makes him tick as a writer and how he shapes close harmony ensemble arranging wrapped around his bop heritage minded tunes choose the SteepleChase release as a preference.
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