Jimmy Farace: Hours Fly, Flowers Die

There have been many recordings of saxophones backed by string sections since Charlie Parker experimented with the idea many years ago. The majority of those have featured tenor or alto sax players. However, on his debut album, Jimmy Farace demonstrates how the baritone sax can excel beautifully in this format.

The full instrumental lineup on this set has Farace in front of a quintet, which also includes guitar and piano, meeting up with the KAIA String Quartet. The two elements blend well together, with the strings never overwhelming the sound of the quintet. KAIA lightly enhances the roaring power of Farace's baritone on "Growing Pains," and leaves plenty of space for pianist Julius Tucker and drummer Dana Hall to roam in their solo passages. The quartet also provides sympathetic backgrounds for the warm samba, "Prophetic Dreams," and the gently folkish "Ferson Creek" where their pizzicato work stands out against Farace's placid melody playing. Farace also does all the arrangements on the album, and two of his best come on older tunes. Kurt Weill's "My Ship" begins with the strings taking on the melody before the baritone and piano swoop elegantly. Meanwhile Duke Ellington's "Single Petal of a Rose" also excels with its powerful merging of the strings and saxophone.

Not everything here is all lush romance. "Backyard Bobcat" is a cheerful soul tune that has Farace tooting happily and Dana Hall cracking along like a Seventies' funk drummer. "Signs of Spring" begins chaotically but settles into a cool Latin mood with Farace and guitarist Kenny Reichert quietly murmuring over KAIA's fertile background. The strings lay out completely on "Directionally Challenged," a brisk quintet jaunt where Farace swings as fast and hard as Pepper Adams. The most surprising track is "Hours Fly, Flowers Die," where the entire ensemble powers through an imposing jazz-prog melody with Farace in the lead before Reichert breaks in with a searing electric guitar solo and Hall explodes on the drums.

Jimmy Farace makes a strong statement on this debut album. His baritone playing is excellent and he also proves to be an imaginative arranger. There have been a lot of saxophone-and-strings albums over the years, but the variety and sheer beauty of the music on this one is special.