Adam Schroeder, Let's

The baritone sax has a special place in my listening mind. There are not quite so many of them and as a result perhaps the very good players appear in bold relief all the more readily. Adam Schroeder is one of them out there doing it today. If I am not mistaken the last album of his I covered was back in 2010 when the Gapplegate Guitar Blog carried some of the jazz overspill, guitar or bass or not.

Today we get with his latest, Let's (Capri 74134-2). The date gives us another straightforward, hard-blowing Schroeder bop-and-after sampler. He's teamed up with John Clayton, a fine bassist, Anthony Wilson on guitar and Jeff Hamilton on drums. Jeff most jazz listeners will know for his way and his many album appearances. Anthony Wilson perhaps is not as well known but serves up some tasteful rootsy solos and comps effectively.

The material is a good mix of Schroeder originals and some classics by Stevie Wonder, Duke Pearson--and Thad Jones on the title tune, among others.

This has some of the old Blue Note sound in the way the band digs in. Adam goes at you with strong tone and plenty of all the right notes for the hard bop-bebop mode. He shines forth and the band keeps right with him with their own individual contributions.

If you dig a good baritone player, Let's gives you plenty to appreciate.

Ira Sullivan Presents the Jim Holman Trio, Special Guest Roger Humphries, Blue Skies

Ira Sullivan! Bop master of the tenor sax and trumpet, fixture of the Chicago and then the Florida scene, now 82 plus years young, still has the spark. You can hear it on Ira Sullivan Presents the Jim Holman Trio: Blue Skies (Delmark 5010). Two sessions from 2011-12 pit Sullivan with young pianist Jim Holman, his trio, and for five tracks includes drummer-legend Roger Humphries.

Bop-and-after is the medium and the message with a modernized feel. The hard bop anthem "Along Came Betty" gets good treatment, as does Miles' "Blue in Green," "Solar" and standards like "Someday My Prince Will Come" and "Just in Time".

The band swings nicely, especially with Maestro Humphries on drums, who sounds excellent here. Jim Holman swings and bops with some very good finesse. He's young but he's dug very deeply into the tradition and manages to sound less like somebody in particular and more like himself than you might expect at age 24. Ira sounds beautiful on both instruments, reminding us how seminal he has been and continues to be.

So there is a celebration of sorts to be heard here. Clearly everybody deeply digs in and shows their love and commitment to the music. That is cause for big smiles and a great set.

Oh, yeah!