Jazz Articles about New Tricks

New Tricks: Alternate Side

by David A. Orthmann
July 14, 2011

Each of the nine tracks of Alternate Side by New Tricks, a quartet co-led by saxophonist Mike Lee and trumpeter Ted Chubb, is a journey of an irregular route with lots of detours. The melodies and some of the tunes' structures resemble hard bop but, in general, the music is freer and more intensely interactive. The give and take between the four principals never ends. Because things frequently change in an instant, nothing can be taken for granted. The band ...

New Tricks: Alternate Side...

by Greg Simmons
April 23, 2011

Here's something you don't read in album liner notes every day: “We recorded in Shawn's apartment...using only blankets wrapped around music stands for audio separation." New Tricks has seemingly recorded Alternate Side... in some no-frills circumstances, but there's truth in the old saying that adversity sometimes brings out the best in people. This piano-less collective, featuring a trumpet and tenor sax front line, plays an energetic brawl of traded solos, hard bop melodies, and freely constructed harmonization. Likely ...

New Tricks at Cecil's Jazz Club

by David A. Orthmann
August 13, 2009

New Tricks Cecil's Jazz Club West Orange, New Jersey July 17, 2009

Over the past few years, the northern New Jersey-based band New Tricks has painstakingly developed a distinctive sound during weekly sessions in the basement studio of saxophonist Mike Lee. It is almost bad form to single out contributions of the tightly knit quartet's members, which include Lee, trumpeter Ted Chubb, bassist Kellen Harrison and drummer Shawn Baltazor. An excellent, self-titled compact disc ...