Chad LB: The Shadow Of Your Smile

Chad LB (for Lefkowitz-Brown), a shining star and technical wizard on the saxophone who has already recorded a full album with strings, uses them on only one number (the hymn "Ave Maria") on The Shadow of Your Smile, leading an able quartet the rest of the way on this generally pleasing studio date.

While his choices of material are diverse (Eric Clapton, Bill Withers, Johnny Mandel, Buck Ram, and J.S. Bach among them), Chad LB is pretty much himself in every setting, playing sharp and perceptive post-bop tenor saxophone, always with a clear end-game in mind. Some of his rapid-fire runs through the keys are mind-boggling, others simply hard to believe. In every instance, he is firmly in control and laser-focused.

Speaking of hard to believe, Chad LB's dazzling technique makes his fondness for leisurely tempos (three of seven numbers) difficult to fathom. On the other hand, this is his gig, and he is entitled to program and play whatever suits him best. Even though LB is a burnished balladeer, more of the sort of heat generated on Clapton's "Layla" or "Change the World," Withers' "Just the Two of Us" and especially the album's charming opener, Johnny Burke and Jimmy van Heusen's romantic warning, "It Could Happen to You," would have been warmly welcomed.

As an aside, Bach's "Ave Maria" is not the hymn many listeners are most accustomed to hearing, the one sung so marvelously by Bing Crosby as the charming Father O'Malley and heard by millions in the 1944 Academy Award-winning film, Going My Way. While lovely in its own way, Bach's theme is rather far removed from that version of "Ave Maria." So do not be surprised when the more familiar melody fails to arrive.

Returning to the business at hand: pianist Liya Grigoryan solos handsomely on three numbers, bassist Ben Tiberio does the same on "Change the World," and together they help drummer Mike Piolet keep the rhythm humming smoothly at every turn. The album's success, however, lies in the dexterous hands and fertile imagination of Chad LB, and he consistently impresses.