After fifty years of teaching and playing, Garzone sounds right at home here—curious, relaxed and surrounded by friends who know how to play with him.
Jojo Records
George Garzone – tenor sax; Randy Brecker – trumpet; Luis Perdomo – piano; Santi Debriano – bass; Jeff “Tain” Watts – drums
George Garzone may be better known to musicians than to the wider jazz audience. The Boston-born tenor saxophonist has taught at Berklee College of Music for 50 years, where his students have included Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis, Donny McCaslin and Mark Turner. He has also spent those decades developing a tenor sound that can be lyrical and beautiful one moment and startlingly aggressive the next. Themes For Good Friends brings him together with trumpeter Randy Brecker, pianist Luis Perdomo, bassist Santi Debriano and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts for a straight-ahead session.
“Theme For Ernie,” a Garzone and Perdomo duet, feels like two friends sharing favorite musical thoughts. It’s a pretty, dreamy tune and Garzone has this big, open tenor tone. He’s so lyrical and melodic, you just know he’s singing the song in his head. Perdomo is singing just as lyrically on piano.
“Ujamma” comes roaring in with a hard-bop groove and a theme played in unison, then Perdomo takes off, his fingers flying across the keyboard while the band keeps the rhythm snapping underneath him. Brecker answers on trumpet, but he’s not matching note for note; he takes the beat, plays with it, pushes it and then slams it back into place. When Garzone finally steps up to the mic, notes pour out of the middle of his tenor. He drops his horn into a low growl, and then jumps up to a squealed high note. By the time Watts gets his turn, the band is flying, and his cymbals shimmer over a flurry of tight, flashy stick work.
After the rush of “Ujamma,” Garzone is much more relaxed on “It Will Happen To You.” He adds vibrato to his low notes, then slides back into the melody, with Perdomo right there with him, filling the spaces with fluid piano lines. Brecker solos, and then Debriano gets his turn, his bass bright, woody and talkative.
“Mingus That I Knew” has a laid-back feel, but every so often the band suddenly picks up the pace, races ahead for a while, and then drops right back into the tune. Brecker plays with that same idea, starting his solo with low trumpet notes and gradually climbing higher, tossing in trills and smears until the high notes seem to spill out of the horn. Garzone is taking it easy, staying mostly in the middle of the tenor before gradually speeding up his lines. Then the band does it again, suddenly pushing the tempo before settling back into the theme.
“To Michael Brecker” begins with Watts alone, using sticks, snares and tom-toms to build a melodic rolling rhythm. When the band joins him, they’re all together, and there’s a feeling the music’s about to break loose, but it doesn’t. The band pulls back to let Watts play alone again. When it comes back, Brecker is trilling a few notes high overhead. There’s a quiet seriousness to it that seems right for a tribute to a friend.
After fifty years of teaching and playing, Garzone sounds right at home here—curious, relaxed and surrounded by friends who know how to play with him.
