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Quinn Sternberg: Pleasant Returns
by Neil Duggan
This is album number five from bassist Quinn Sternberg. It follows on from Walking On Eggshells (Mind Beach Records, 2023). A resident of Asheville, North Carolina, as of this writing, Sternberg returned to New Orleans for the recording. He had previously worked in the city for nearly a decade and notes that “Having not seen or played with my bandmates in close to a year, I wanted to do something that captured the joy of reconnecting with old friends through ...
Continue ReadingMatt Booth: Sun Prints
by Troy Dostert
Although this is far from a debut album, Matt Booth's Sun Prints does provide an opportunity for the enterprising bassist to offer a release comprised solely of his own compositions. With the assistance of a well-assembled band behind him, Booth proves himself more than capable of meeting the challenge, with eleven engaging tunes that cover a wide swath of jazz idioms. Booth's quintet features his frequent associate Oscar Rossignoli on piano and keyboards, along with trumpeter Steve Lands, ...
Continue ReadingSam Taylor: Let Go
by Edward Blanco
Presenting his third offering from the Cellar Live record label, Harlem-based and Philadelphia native, saxophonist Sam Taylor unleashes an exciting bop-filled package of contemporary jazz covers, making a superb job of interpreting the music of composers such as Benny Golson, Hank Jones, Jule Styne and Jimmy Van Heusen and laying down sturdy new treatments of oft-recorded and ageless classics. The goal of this project is best described by the saxophonist himself in the liner notes when he states: “Fill the ...
Continue ReadingSam Taylor: Let Go
by Edward Blanco
A very tasteful and swinging version of the Jimmy Van Heusen classic standard “Here's That Rainy Day," from tenor saxophonist Sam Taylor on his third album as leader entitled Let Go featuring trumpeter Terell Stafford and an all-star rhythm section of pianist Jeb Patton, bassist Neal Miner and drummer Willie Jones III. The quintet sets out to send a clear message on the title track and this piece is but a glimpse of how good they sound when they all ...
Continue ReadingSam Taylor: Let Go
by Pierre Giroux
Tenor saxophonist Sam Taylor is a man with a purpose. He is committed to sharing the joy music brings him with like-minded listeners. For this album, he brought together a number of his heroes including trumpeter Terell Stafford, pianist Jeb Patton, bassist Neal Miner and drummer Willie Jones III at one of jazz's most iconic recording studios, the Van Gelder Studios at Englewood Cliffs NJ, on January 31, 2022, under the guidance of engineer Maureen Sickler. ...
Continue ReadingQuinn Sternberg: Cicada Songs
by Chris M. Slawecki
On Cicada Songs, bassist Quinn Sternberg paints a dreamy portrait of a languid summer evening at home, a visit to a comfortable front porch full of snoozing dogs, meandering cats, and the natural summer serenade of its title track. The first Cicada song is “June," Sternberg and company's collective musing about what Sternberg's beloved dog named June might dream about. “June" opens with a shimmer of cymbals, like you're passing through the gossamer curtain of sleep and are ...
Continue ReadingSam Taylor: Along The Way
by Jack Bowers
On almost half of the nine tracks on Along the Way, tenor saxophonist Sam Taylor's close-knit quartet is actually a quintet thanks to the emphatic presence of the renowned Philadelphia-based tenor, Larry McKenna. Taylor's impressive visitor, two months shy of his eightieth birthday when the album was recorded in May 2017, keeps on playing with the sort of enthusiasm and awareness usually ascribed to musicians many years his junior--as, for example, Taylor, for whom McKenna has been an exemplar and ...
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