Jazz Articles about Joe Syrian

About Joe Syrian

Album Review

Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: A Blue Time

Read "A Blue Time" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 10, 2026

Drummer Joe Syrian's spit-shined Motor City Jazz Octet keeps driving emphatically forward on its second recording, A Blue Time, using an impressive arsenal to scurry through a generally agreeable lineup of more or less familiar themes that have been given fresh coats of paint by seven astute and talented arrangers. Even with the various harmonic and rhythmic changes, many of which were inspired by Syrian, the music remains lucid and accessible, thanks to the clever charts and spirited ...

Album Review

Joe Syrian: Secret Message

Read "Secret Message" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
April 14, 2025

A title like Secret Message does make a listener wonder what it might be. Is it deeply subversive, like the Zimmerman Telegram, or apocalyptic, like Fatima? Of course, as someone is reputed to have said, 'Sometimes, a cigar is just a smoke.' So it is possible to over-interpret a title, which may, in the final analysis, simply be a title. Joe Syrian is a Detroit-based drummer, a city that can claim Brian Blade, J. C. Heard, ...

Album Review

Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet: Secret Message

Read "Secret Message" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 15, 2024

No fuss, no frills here, simply forty-seven or so minutes of generally bright and engaging straight-ahead jazz, stylishly performed by drummer Joe Syrian's admirable Detroit-based octet. This is music the group plays often, blending standards from the Great American Songbook with more recent themes by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Leon Russell and others. The congenial session opens with a pair of well-traveled standards--"Bye Bye Blackbird," and “Star Eyes"--and closes with two more- -"Night and ...

Album Review

Joe Syrian's Motor City Jazz Octet: Sanctuary

Read "Sanctuary" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
April 22, 2016

The Motor City Jazz Octet numbers in its ranks thirty or more of the Detroit metropolitan area's most accomplished musicians, eight of whom actually perform together at any given moment. Because of that, and some other quirks, the octet's debut album, Sanctuary, is in some respects a study in confusion. A press release accompanying the album, which was recorded in May 2013, names three guest artists--organist Jimmy Smith, guitarist George Benson, tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza--none of whom appears on the ...