Friday, January 26, 2018

Gary Smulyan - Alternative Contrafacts (SteepleChase Productions ApS February 15, 2018)


Baritone saxophonist Gary Smulyan brings here his trademark “contrafacts” (a music making method that shares the chord progressions with other compositions) approach to this first SteepleChase leader outing challenging us (maybe?) to guess the tunes he is employing.

Smulyan whose professional career took shape by joining Woody Herman’s Young Thundering Herds at age 22 (1978) has won Critics’ and Readers’ Poll awards numerous times by Downbeat and JazzTimes, among others.

1. Vodka (Mal Waldron)
2. Deep People (Jimmy Guiffre)
3. Tale Of The Fingers (Paul Chambers)
4. Cohn Pone (Al Cohn/Nick Travis)
5. Moodamorphosis (Gil Fuller,Dave Burns)
6. Ahma See Ya (Ted Curson)
7. I've Changed (Gary Smulyan)
8. On The Minute (John Eardley)
9. Hand (Coleman Hawkins)

David Wong bass
Rodney Green drums