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Jazz Articles about Steve Heckman
About Steve Heckman
Instrument: Saxophone, tenor
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by Jack Bowers
With so many singers these days competing to tempt the ears of an ever-shrinking jazz audience, success often rests not only on the talents of the vocalist but on the songs he or she chooses to interpret. On Going My Way, San Francisco-based vocalist Zeena Quinn puts her best foot forward on the opening numbers, “Lover" and “So in Love" (it's hard to go astray with Rodgers and Hart or Cole Porter) but it takes her quite a while to ...
read moreSteve Heckman & Matt Clark: Some Other Time/Slow Café
by Dan Bilawsky
Back in the summer of 2004, saxophonist Steve Heckman and pianist Matt Clark took to the studio to lay down some duo tracks. Those recordings have now finally found their way into the world through Some Other Time/Slow Café, an album presenting a dozen pieces that speak with casual and reflective charm while highlighting the rapport that these two men have with one another. The straightforward sensibility of this pair is front and center across this entire ...
read moreSteve Heckman: Legacy: A Coltrane Tribute
by Dan McClenaghan
Saxophonist Steve Heckman has spent a good deal of his career walking in the footsteps of saxophone giant John Coltrane, on CD offerings such as Search For Peace (Jazzed Media, 2014) and With John In Mind (World City Music, 2003). With that in mind, nobody has ever--and almost certainly never will--match 'Trane in his ability to infuse his spiritual side into his music; or to play with half the Coltrane-ian freedom or fervor. To his credit, Heckman doesn't try. He, ...
read moreSteve Heckman: Legacy: A Coltrane Tribute
by Jack Bowers
Whenever words such as A Coltrane Tribute adorn the front cover of an album, one question that inevitably springs to mind is, which John Coltrane? Trane, after all, was never one to stand still, or, as the saying goes, to rest on his laurels (truth be told, he hardly ever rested at all, choosing instead to use almost every waking hour to pursue his spiritual muse). Saxophonist Steve Heckman, a long-time admirer of Coltrane, makes no apologies for loving “his ...
read moreSteve Heckman Quintet: Search for Peace
by Dan Bilawsky
Saxophonist Steve Heckman's Search For Peace serves as something of a companion piece to his previous album--Born To Be Blue (Jazzed Media, 2013). Both albums feature the same band, present (mostly) familiar material, and walk pleasingly straightforward paths. So what's different? Well, for starters, Matt Clark played piano on Heckman's last date, but he's taken to the Hammond B-3 here. Then there's Heckman's choice of horns. The man-in-charge played clarinet, bass clarinet, alto saxophone and tenor saxophone on Born To ...
read moreSteve Heckman Quintet: Search for Peace
by C. Michael Bailey
Steve Heckman is a meat 'n potatoes saxophonist whose previous recording, Born to be Blue (Jazzed Media, 2013) was a trip through the heart of the jazz mainstream, circa 1960 (with better sonics). Heckman follows Born to be Blue with a right turn into hard bop atop of an organ-guitar quartet. For the present recording, Heckman employs his same band as Born to be Blue with Matt Clark switching to the Hammond B-3. The result is a ...
read moreSteve Heckman Quintet: Search for Peace
by Jack Bowers
Steve Heckman says he was inspired to play the tenor saxophone after hearing John Coltrane, especially Coltrane's A Love Supreme. Luckily, Heckman did not follow his mentor completely off the deep end but remained instead true to his bop-bred roots while developing a singular voice of his own on the tenor. On Search for Peace (a title Coltrane would no doubt have endorsed), San Francisco-based Heckman's fourth album as leader, Trane's impact is never far away but has been tempered ...
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