I Know, Don't Know How - Gary Smulyan and the JBC скачать в хорошем качестве

I Know, Don't Know How - Gary Smulyan and the JBC

Excerpt from: Sax Giants Then & Now Jazz By WILL FRIEDWALD New York Sun March 10, 2006 Gary Smulyan, the outstanding baritone saxophonist of his generation, is honoring two distinct aspects of his horn's heritage this week.Through Sunday, he is playing alongside trumpeter Jeremy Pelt at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, re-creating the Donald Byrd-Pepper Adams Quintet, and on Wednesday, he starred in a program of Gerry Mulligan's music, accompanied by the excellent student orchestra Jazz Band Classic. Mr. Smulyan is the rare musician who could do justice to both these remarkable - and extremely different - player-composers. Take, for instance, that staple of jazz composition, the major-key blues, which was a highlight of both shows. In playing Byrd's "Hush" at Dizzy's, Mr. Smulyan was earthy, visceral, almost gruff. His version of Mulligan's "Blueport,"though no less aggressive, was much more airborne, belonging to the sky rather than the earth. Mr. Pelt's playing was at its usual high standard, but the driving force of the beautiful program at Dizzy's Tuesday was Mr. Smulyan. At one point, he surprised everyone by introducing a Charleston dance figure in the middle of a hard-bop blues. At Symphony Space, he impressed with a crafty exchange with Christian Contreras, Jazz Band Classic's teenage baritone saxophonist, on the rare "I Know, Don't Know How." At its best, the baritone is a dancing bear of an instrument, but Gary Smulyan is so "all over" his horn, as musicians say, that it sounds more like a tenor on steroids.