Chad Lefkowitz-Brown's Standard Sessions - CD Release Concerts November 23 & 24 at Birdland, NYC

CD Release Concerts November 23 & 24 at Birdland, NYC

Impromptu jam sessions are a crucial proving ground for young jazz musicians during their formative years - and for artists who thrive on spontaneity, they're also a heck of a lot of fun. While his increasingly busy calendar proves that saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown learned all the right lessons from those informal early gatherings, it also means that opportunities to enjoy such creative camaraderie have become fewer and farther between. So for his new digital-only release, Standard Sessions - now available via Sound Frame Records, available at www.chadlefkowitz-brown.com/music - Lefkowitz-Brown decided to make those opportunities happen. He invited some of his favorite musicians to gather together, blow on some familiar standards, and see what happens - just like in the old days.

Of course, for Lefkowitz-Brown the "old days" aren't really that old. The saxophonist arrived in NYC just eight years ago, and was fortunate to settle on the bottom floor of a house in Harlem where the basement lent itself to musical gatherings. "There was a drum set and an upright piano, so every day I would bring people over to have sessions," he recalls. "I look back fondly on those days as some of my favorite musical experiences, and they came out of just playing tunes in the basement."

Over the ensuing years, however, Lefkowitz-Brown found himself increasingly in demand: touring the world with pop superstar Taylor Swift, playing with jazz greats from Dave Brubeck to Clarence Penn, and performing as a member of Arturo O'Farrill's Grammy winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. The friends he'd been jamming with were on their own career trajectories as well, meaning that none of them could spare much time for basement jam sessions.

"I started to miss it," Lefkowitz-Brown says, so he came up with the idea for the series of spur-of-the-moment recordings that became Standard Sessions. One thing that had changed since those no-pressure early days was Lefkowitz-Brown's diehard social media following. Using a few tricks that he'd learned from the media-savvy T-Swift and other observations of the pop music world, he has cultivated a worldwide fanbase numbering more than 70,000 followers across platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. For these jam sessions, those fans would become the virtual audience; each session was recorded and aired via YouTube, with 12 highlights now collected for this album, available via iTunes, Spotify, and other digital outlets (all 18 can be found at Lefkowitz-Brown's website).

Every session represented a unique first-time gathering, joining Lefkowitz-Brown with a rhythm section that had never played together before. The invitees represent a wide swath of the thriving Manhattan scene, cutting across generations, styles, and experience levels: pianists Manuel Valera, Carmen Staaf, Victor Gould, David Meder, Steven Feifke, Takeshi Ohbayashi, Adam Birnbaum, and Josh Richman; bassists Yasushi Nakamura, Jonathan Michel, Eric Wheeler, Tamir Shmerling, Ben Tiberio, Raviv Markovitz, and Ricky Rodriguez; and drummers Kush Abadey, Allan Mednard, Charles Goold, Michael Piolet, Bryan Carter, Chris Smith, Jeremy Dutton, and Darrian Douglas.

"There were people at the sessions that I'd known for 10 to 15 years," Lefkowitz-Brown says, "and then there were people that I'd known for 10 to 15 months. It was cool to see someone that I had known practically since childhood and someone I had only met recently playing together on the same session."

Two tunes, "On Green Dolphin Street" and "When Will the Blues Leave," feature Feifke, a pianist that Lefkowitz started collaborating with when both were teenagers, together with Piolet, a drummer he had met recently but never shared the bandstand with before that day. Then there were meetings between veterans like Cuban-born Valera, who has been in the city for nearly two decades, and newcomers like Tiberio, who had been on the scene for less than a year when they recorded their fiery take on "Alone Together."

To ensure the in-the-moment invention that he was seeking to replicate, Lefkowitz-Brown left the choice of tunes up to the assembled bands, decided on the day, just before they were recorded for posterity. Each piece was allowed a maximum of two takes, with most accomplished in one - or with the first one chosen for its raw vitality.

"Those first takes usually felt the best," Lefkowitz-Brown explains. "It's definitely harder to make things spontaneous when you have in your mind that this is actually going to be permanent, but I told everyone, 'If we don't like it, I'll trash it.' I think because of that everybody was able to go in there pretty relaxed and just feel like it was a jam back at my place in Harlem, which was my goal. I wanted to recreate what happened when people got together to just play tunes in a basement and have lunch together."

Information about Standard Sessions, here

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown - Standard Sessions (SOUND FRAME RECORDS 2018)

Saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown Recreates the Thrilling Spontaneity of an Informal Jam Session with Two Dozen Stellar Improvisers on Digital Release

Standard Sessions, out today, features Manuel Valera, Kush Abadey, Yasushi Nakamura, Carmen Staaf, Victor Gould, Allan Mednard, Jonathan Michel, and many others gathered for impromptu takes on favorite standards

“Whatever the vehicle, Lefkowitz-Brown plays with sturdy melodicism and bite, harnessing technical abilities that mask the difficulty of his wondrously intricate lines."

— Brian Zimmerman, DownBeat

“Lefkowitz-Brown has mastered the art of using a single improvised line to elicit complex emotions… his beautiful sound purely his own.”

— James Rozzi, Jazziz

Impromptu jam sessions are a crucial proving ground for young jazz musicians during their formative years – and for artists who thrive on spontaneity, they’re also a heck of a lot of fun. While his increasingly busy calendar proves that saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown learned all the right lessons from those informal early gatherings, it also means that opportunities to enjoy such creative camaraderie have become fewer and farther between. So for his new digital-only release, Standard Sessions – out Friday, September 28, 2018 via Sound Frame Records, available at https://www.chadlb.com/music – Lefkowitz-Brown decided to make those opportunities happen. He invited some of his favorite musicians to gather together, blow on some familiar standards, and see what happens – just like in the old days.

Of course, for Lefkowitz-Brown the “old days” aren’t really that old. The saxophonist arrived in NYC just eight years ago, and was fortunate to settle on the bottom floor of a house in Harlem where the basement lent itself to musical gatherings. “There was a drum set and an upright piano, so every day I would bring people over to have sessions,” he recalls. “I look back fondly on those days as some of my favorite musical experiences, and they came out of just playing tunes in the basement.”

Over the ensuing years, however, Lefkowitz-Brown found himself increasingly in demand: touring the world with pop superstar Taylor Swift, playing with jazz greats from Dave Brubeck to Clarence Penn, and performing as a member of Arturo O’Farrill’s Grammy winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. The friends he’d been jamming with were on their own career trajectories as well, meaning that none of them could spare much time for basement jam sessions. 

“I started to miss it,” Lefkowitz-Brown says, so he came up with the idea for the series of spur-of-the-moment recordings that became Standard Sessions. One thing that had changed since those no-pressure early days was Lefkowitz-Brown’s diehard social media following. Using a few tricks that he’d learned from the media-savvy T-Swift and other observations of the pop music world, he has cultivated a worldwide fanbase numbering more than 70,000 followers across platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. For these jam sessions, those fans would become the virtual audience; each session was recorded and aired via YouTube, with 12 highlights now collected for this album, available via iTunes, Spotify, and other digital outlets (all 18 can be found at Lefkowitz-Brown’s website).

Every session represented a unique first-time gathering, joining Lefkowitz-Brown with a rhythm section that had never played together before. The invitees represent a wide swath of the thriving Manhattan scene, cutting across generations, styles, and experience levels: pianists Manuel Valera, Carmen Staaf, Victor Gould, David Meder, Steven Feifke, Takeshi Ohbayashi, Adam Birnbaum, and Josh Richman; bassists Yasushi Nakamura, Jonathan Michel, Eric Wheeler, Tamir Shmerling, Ben Tiberio, Raviv Markovitz, and Ricky Rodriguez; and drummers Kush Abadey, Allan Mednard, Charles Goold, Michael Piolet, Bryan Carter, Chris Smith, Jeremy Dutton, and Darrian Douglas.

“There were people at the sessions that I’d known for 10 to 15 years,” Lefkowitz-Brown says, “and then there were people that I’d known for 10 to 15 months. It was cool to see someone that I had known practically since childhood and someone I had only met recently playing together on the same session.”

Two tunes, “On Green Dolphin Street” and “When Will the Blues Leave,” feature Feifke, a pianist that Lefkowitz started collaborating with when both were teenagers, together with Piolet, a drummer he had met recently but never shared the bandstand with before that day. Then there were meetings between veterans like Cuban-born Valera, who has been in the city for nearly two decades, and newcomers like Tiberio, who had been on the scene for less than a year when they recorded their fiery take on “Alone Together.”

To ensure the in-the-moment invention that he was seeking to replicate, Lefkowitz-Brown left the choice of tunes up to the assembled bands, decided on the day, just before they were recorded for posterity. Each piece was allowed a maximum of two takes, with most accomplished in one – or with the first one chosen for its raw vitality. 

“Those first takes usually felt the best,” Lefkowitz-Brown explains. “It’s definitely harder to make things spontaneous when you have in your mind that this is actually going to be permanent, but I told everyone, ‘If we don’t like it, I’ll trash it.’ I think because of that everybody was able to go in there pretty relaxed and just feel like it was a jam back at my place in Harlem, which was my goal. I wanted to recreate what happened when people got together to just play tunes in a basement and have lunch together.”

Adam O'Farrill - El Maquech (BIOPHILIA RECORDS June 1, 2018)

Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill pivots away from his family’s musical legacy toward dazzling postbop sounds

Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill is just 23, but there’s already plenty of weight attached to his name. His father is the acclaimed, innovative Latin jazz bandleader and pianist Arturo O’Farrill, and his grandfather was the great Afro-Cuban bandleader Chico.

He began to forge his own path early on in his career, making waves playing alongside saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on the latter’s 2015 album Bird Calls (ACT) and establishing himself as an improviser of protean strength and melodic clarity.

On his debut as a bandleader, 2016’s Stranger Days (Sunnyside), Adam eschews any connection to the lineage carved out by his forebears, pursuing a limber but sharply articulated strain of free bop that sparkles with erudition, soul, and precision.

Leading a quartet with tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, bassist Walter Stinson, and his older brother Zach O’Farrill on drums, Adam proffers a vanguard postbop sound with rhythmic, elastic structures and harmonic thickets that support his sneaky, snaking melodies. A year ago I saw the group play a fiery but measured set in New York, and that performance, along with the group’s forthcoming second full-length, El Maquech (due in June from Biophilia), has completely convinced me that his band is the real deal. The album, which was recorded in the midst of a tour, captures the band playing with serious heat and interactive brio. This time out Adam explicitly draws upon nonjazz sources, opening with a thrilling adaptation of a northern Mexican folk tune called “Siiva Moiiva” and ending with a smoldering rendition of “Pour Maman,” an electro-soul song by New York singer-songwriter Gabriel Gárzon-Montano. While it’s early in 2018, I haven’t heard a better jazz record yet this year. 

By Peter Margasak / www.chicagoreader.com

Adam O’Farrill, trumpet

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, tenor sax

Walter Stinson, bass

Zach O’Farrill, drums

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown's Onward with Randy Brecker

Saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown Pushes Vigorously Onward 

with his Sophomore Release, out May 12 featuring Randy Brecker

Acclaimed as one of his generation’s leading sax voices, Lefkowitz-Brown has worked with Taylor Swift and Dave Brubeck, taking lessons from both extremes

“Lefkowitz-Brown has a sumptuous, powerful sound on the tenor sax and a melodic, virtuosic style." — Paul Hrycaj, All Jazz Sax

“Lefkowitz-Brown has mastered the art of using a single improvised line to elicit complex emotions… his beautiful sound purely his own.” — James Rozzi, Aziz

At just 27 years old, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown can already look back on a career of impressive accomplishments: he’s become widely recognized among his peers as one of the most virtuosic saxophonists of his generation, toured the world with pop superstar Taylor Swift, played with jazz greats from Dave Brubeck to Clarence Penn, is a member of Arturo O’Farrill’s multi-Grammy winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, received numerous DownBeat Student Music Awards, and become the youngest faculty member at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he’ll help mold a new generation of jazz musicians alongside innovators like Robin Eubanks, Matt Wilson, David Sanchez and Julian Lage.

But despite having accrued enough laurels for an artist several decades his elder to rest on, Lefkowitz-Brown has firmly set his sights in one direction: Onward. With his new album of that title, out May 12, the saxophonist takes another leap forward with a set of original compositions and jazz standards that spotlight his ferocious chops and boundless musicality. He leads a quartet of longtime collaborators and friends – pianist Steven Feifke, bassist Raviv Markovitz, and drummer Jimmy Macbride, all of whom have been exploring music together at least since their high school days – and is joined on two tracks by legendary trumpeter Randy Brecker, who lends his imprimatur to a rising star whose expressive voice bears comparison with Randy’s late brother, the iconic saxophonist Michael Brecker. 

In addition to looking onward in terms of the music that he plays, Lefkowitz-Brown has shown a savvy ability to cultivate a younger fanbase through his outreach on social media. With more than 40,000 followers across platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, Lefkowitz-Brown has found a way to connect with the elusive millennial audience. In that aspect of his career he’s learned a few tricks from his sometime boss Taylor Swift – albeit on a much smaller scale.

“A mom-and-pop coffee shop still has to take cues from Starbucks,” the saxophonist shrugs. “I think that applies to jazz musicians as well. There’s only so much that I can take from the pop world into the jazz world, but it’s been exciting for me to see through social media that there are a lot of young kids out there who are passionate about jazz and want to hear people playing and improvising at a really high level.”

Though still poised at the nascent stages of a promising career, Onward reveals the fruits of what has already been a wealth of rich and diverse experience. Lefkowitz-Brown earned his earliest performing credits on stages in his native Elmira, New York, where he played alongside then-septuagenarian drummer George Reed, a jazz veteran who’d accompanied legends like Marian McPartland and Teddy Wilson.

“Growing up playing with George really shaped my development as a musician,” Lefkowitz-Brown says. “No matter how interested I became in modern concepts, he would always pull me back and remind me of how deep the tradition of jazz is.” 

Lefkowitz-Brown continued his education at the Brubeck Institute, where he was able to play regularly with the program’s namesake, jazz giant Dave Brubeck.  He’s since performed on the stages of renowned jazz venues and on more high-profile gigs including concerts at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Super Bowl, often alongside Swift. “Experiencing first-hand the process of performing pop music to stadiums full of adoring fans made me value the importance of connecting with people through performance, even when playing more creative music,” he says.

That wide-ranging approach, ability to communicate with listeners and familiarity with the music’s history is evident in Lefkowitz-Brown’s playing as well as that of his bandmates throughout Onward. Having worked and evolved together since their teenage years, Lefkowitz-Brown says, has resulted in a shared perspective on their own place in that spectrum. “We all play a lot of different music, anything from free jazz to fusion,” he says. “But we all seem to settle into a home base with each other. Our favorite type of jazz aligns and I feel good that this music is representative of what we love to play.”

The album kicks off with the leader’s forceful title track, a blistering introduction to Lefkowitz-Brown’s muscular approach to the horn. The mid-tempo “Franklin Street” is a nostalgic look back at his childhood home, while “Deviation” is a tribute to Brubeck and his singular path through the music. The simmering “Impetuous” hoists the description as a positive mantle, while “Blues for Randy” turns up the funk for a romp with Brecker.

Stevie Wonder’s familiar “Isn’t She Lovely” shows off Lefkowitz-Brown’s gift for melodic elaboration, while he faces down Coltrane’s “Giant Steps,” a trial by fire for every tenorman, with fearless bravado, propelled by Macbride’s driving rhythms. He turns to breathy tenderness for “The Nearness of You,” and closes the album with a brisk jaunt through Cole Porter’s “All of You,” transforming the standard into a blisteringly swinging workout.

Adam O'Farrill - Stranger Days (2016) SUNNYSIDE RECORDS

PRESENT

Adam O'Farrill - Stranger Days (2016)

Though he has only been at it for a short time, Adam O'Farrill has displayed maturity in his music beyond his 21 years. The young trumpeter/composer was introduced to the music world early on and quickly ascertained the importance of history, hard work and collaboration to realize his voice as an artist. On his debut recording as a leader, Stranger Days, O'Farrill introduces his fantastic and highly interactive quartet of the same name, showcasing distinctive and subtly programmatic original pieces. 

The Brooklyn born and raised O'Farrill comes from a celebrated musical lineage: his grandfather, the Cuban composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill; his father, pianist and composer Arturo O'Farrill; and his mother Alison Deane, a classical pianist. Growing up in a musically rich environment, his parents showing him everything from Oscar Peterson to Steely Dan to Olivier Messiaen, it was only natural that he fell into it, first with piano lessons and then to the trumpet when he was 8 years old. 

It was the influence of many, including his father and his bandmates, that led O'Farrill to appreciate the aspects of community within music, but it was the influence of his older brother and drummer Zack that really helped him deepen his studying and listening. Together they shared their love of jazz, traded recordings and played together on a daily basis. To this day, they have a deep musical connection that is apparent when they are on the bandstand. 

O'Farrill's evolution has been a fast one and much of that is due to the teachers he has had. His first trumpet teacher was the great Jim Seeley, followed by studies with the likes of Nathan Warner, Thomas Smith, Cecil Bridgewater, and Laurie Frink. The latter he briefly studied with at Manhattan School of Music, where he is in his final semester and where he met his first composition instructor, Reiko Füting, who had a profound impact on O'Farrill's approach to composition. 

It wasn't long before listeners began to take note of O'Farrill's talent. He has performed extensively with his father, most often in his sextet, Boss Level, and in the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, including on the Grammy nominated Cuba: The Conversation Continues. It is O'Farrill's recent association with saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa that has garnered him the most attention, as he has placed himself alongside one of the most important musical conceptualists of the past decade, on the highly lauded Bird Calls. Other creative artists that Adam has worked with include Gabriel Zucker, Stephan Crump, JIL, Sister Helen, Fred Ho, Onyx Collective, and Samora Pinderhughes. 

Stranger Days was originally assembled in February 2014 as a quick addition to a triple bill. O'Farrill naturally chose his coconspirator and brother for the drum chair and then a couple of his longtime musical friends (he sees them as older brothers) to join the mix, tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown and bassist Walter Stinson. 

Along with music, O'Farrill loves films. His appreciation of cinema has strengthened his view of narrative and character within his music. His intention in his music is to permit a balance between the individual identities of the musicians and the direction of the music, in many cases to tell a story, carried by the overall band sound. Therefore, he needed musicians who he could trust to bring authenticity to the compositions, along with their distinctive personalities (and humor). O'Farrill has that in his friends, the crew of Stranger Days. 

The recording begins with “A&R Italian Eatery,” a laid back introductory waltz that allows a playful dialogue between the band members. The piece depicts 'those old New York Italian restaurants where all the regulars are sitting around shooting the shit' (as Adam says). Named after the Camus novel, “The Stranger” is a Mingus inspired study of the story's main character's psychological murkiness, the solo trumpet intro interpreting the waves of an Algerian beach. “Survival Instincts” is a real challenge, as this ensemble piece presents a variety of difficult sequences that the musicians have to survive, like bosses that must be defeated before moving on to the next level of a video game. 

A Lefkowitz-Brown sax 'monologue' introduces Stinson's “Why She Loves,” an enigmatic, yet moving piece that truly showcases everyone's musical character. “Alligator Got The Blues” is swampy and lurking, a slightly elegiac piece that picks up pace under a striking sax solo. Stinson also penned “Forget Everything You've Learned At School,” a tough piece that wittily represents a teacher and a poor student throwing all they learned out the window. 

“The Cows and Their Farmer Walt” was written with the imagination of Stinson as a disgruntled farmer. This piece was deeply inspired by the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Band Concert (1935), but in this case the tornado is Zack's thunderous drums, which inspired Adam to dub him 'Brother Nature.’ Following this tremendous drum solo, “The Courtroom” continues the story as a judge (bass), a politician (sax), and an environmental scientist (trumpet) try to come to terms with what happened after this natural disaster, not to mention what happened to the cows and their farmer. 

The grooving and pointillistic “Building the Metamorphosen Bridge” utilizes a system of improvising where certain bass positions signal certain harmonic intervals that the horns can solo on. This is the final piece in a trilogy of sorts that began with “The Cows,” as the building of the bridge is a sign towards progress and development. Closing in a more traditional vein, “Lower Brooklyn Botanical Union” is a contrafact of Billy Strayhorn's “U.M.M.G.” and also contains a hip salute to O'Farrill's grandfather, utilizing a piece of the flute melody from his masterwork, The Second Afro Cuban Jazz Suite. The piece concludes the album in a way that shows how modernist the ensemble is, but also has a deep respect and understanding of what came before. 

The mightily talented Adam O'Farrill has assembled a singular group in Stranger Days. Together, they have created a quiet, intense, at times humorous, and at all times entertaining debut album.

01. A & R Italian Eatery 03:29

02. The Stranger 10:17

03. Survival Instincts 06:50

04. Why She Loves 08:52

05. Alligator Got The Blues 05:51

06. Forget Everything You've Learned At School 05:44

07. The Cows and Their Farmer Walt 07:40

08. The Courtroom 03:16

09. Building The Metamorphosen Bridge 05:16

10. Lower Brooklyn Botanical Union 06:15

Released April 29, 2016 

Adam O'Farrill - trumpet 

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown - tenor sax 

Walter Stinson - bass 

Zack O'Farrill - drums

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