Some “contemporary creative improvised music,” sounds to me as if players are creating auditory versions of Kandinsky angularities. Let us remember always how the tenor saxophone, when played by a Master, can croon and purr and woo and seduce: groovy love.
Two sweet examples below come from an evening at Smalls — December 20, 2013 — with a quartet led by tenor Master Joel Press, with piano Master Michael Kanan, string bass Master Boots Maleson, and percussion Master Fukushi Tainaka. The tempo for the first is yearning rapture (“Oh, how my life would be transformed if I could call you mine.”) and the second is the delighted excitation of things perhaps best imagined rather than verbalized (“Wow!”).
IF I HAD YOU:
YOU DO SOMETHING TO ME:
Declarations of love, not only to specific people who may or may not have been in the audience or on the planet, but to Ike Quebec, Eddie Miller, Lester Young, Art Tatum, Jimmy Rowles, and a host of others who well deserve our love and reverence.
More to come.
May your happiness increase!
i recall reading where a pretentious critic asked “Pres” what he trying to say the answer was “I just play tenor.” Nuff said.
Joel picked up the torch from Al & Zoot and proudly carries it ablaze!
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