Author Archives: Mel Minter

Late-Night Benjamin Herman

cafeSolo_kleinBenjamin Herman, Café Solo (Roach Records)
A Review

Dutch alto saxophonist Benjamin Herman’s latest album, Café Solo, couldn’t be simpler in concept: get a swinging trio together, record a collection of standards live, and make the sound of the horn the focal point of the
album. Sitting in a comfortable chair, with Ernst Glerum (bass) and Joost Patocka (drums) behind him, Herman delivers a series of relaxed performances that take the
listener all over the saxophone.

There’s a compelling intimacy in the performances that makes it easy to imagine the three are playing a final set in a near-empty club in the middle of the week. They’re playing for
themselves, and kissed by midnight, the performances have a moving honesty shorn of
affectation.

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Antonio Sanchez Flows Free and Easy

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Antonio Sanchez, New Life (CamJazz)
A Review

You know the old joke: “What do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?”

“A drummer.” Fid-a-boomp.

Maybe we should reformulate that: “What do you call musicians who hang out with drummer Antonio Sanchez?”

“Lucky.”

That reworking comes on the heels of listening to New Life, the latest release from this melodic drummer, whose résumé includes outstanding work with Pat Metheny, Danilo Pérez, Gary
Burton, and Miguel Zenón, among others. The album delivers an affirmation of hope and
confidence, showcasing Sanchez’s rich compositional talents as well as the improvisational mastery of the top-drawer lineup: David Binney (alto sax), Donny McCaslin (tenor sax), John
Escreet (piano and Rhodes), and Matt Brewer (bass), with special guest Thana Alexa (voice).

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Asher Barreras and John Maestas Go Large

Last summer, when bassist Asher Barreras and guitarist John Maestas booked a set for a nonet in the Outpost’s summer series, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew these two native Burqueans as primo players and ambitious composers who have swallowed a variety of genres while swimming in the jazz ocean. I’d heard them shine as sidemen and as coequals in their Humoso quartet. But a nonet with reed and brass sections? What exactly would two young string-plucking whippersnappers know about writing for a mess of wind instruments?

Well, it was a smokin’ set, and it featured some of the Southwest’s best players, several of whom also contributed fine compositions. It was so good, in fact, that the Outpost invited the nonet back for a full evening in the middle of the high-profile spring season.

Expectations have now been raised, but I’ve no doubt that this Thursday, Barreras, Maestas, and company—Kanoa Kaluhiwa and Aaron Lovato (tenor sax), Glenn Kostur (alto sax), Paul Gonzales and JQ Whitcomb (trumpet), Ben Finberg (trombone), and Paul Palmer III (drums), with help from special guest Albuquerque Poet Laureate Hakim Bellamy—will satisfy those
expectations and then some.

The summer 2012 version of the Barreras/Maestas nonet. Photo by and courtesy of Jim Gale.

The summer 2012 version of the John Maestas–Asher Barreras nonet. Photo by and courtesy of Jim Gale.

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Pictures at an Exhibition

A Review:
 Kevin Harris Project, Museum, vol. 1

MuseumVol1CoverOne of the great pleasures of reviewing
music is learning how much you don’t know. Over the years, a large number of unsolicited CDs have come in over the transom,
introducing me to artists I had never heard of or knew only vaguely by name. Every so
often, popping one of these discs into the player for a quick sample, I hear something that demands closer inspection.

I remember, for example, getting Omar Sosa’s Mulatos for potential review from an editor. The disc sat on the shelf for weeks. I didn’t know much about Sosa, and I thought the artwork on the cover was goofy. Finally, one day, grudgingly, out of obligatory curiosity, I put the disc on to have a quick listen—and got my mind blown. Now, Sosa is an icon around this house, and I’ve even grown to love the Mulatos artwork.

Pianist/composer Kevin Harris may be headed for the same fate with the Kevin Harris Project’s release of Museum, vol.1. Continue reading →

hONEyhoUSe Heats Up the Sweet Spot

I swung by vocalist Hillary Smith’s house to pick up the new hONEyhoUSe CD, which was
waiting for me in an envelope stashed behind the fountain by her front door. With
characteristic generosity, Smith had left two copies, and that only made me doubly nervous.

I had been so over-the-top smitten by the trio’s first album, Sun, that I was afraid to cut the plastic wrap on this one. What if their first album had just been lightning captured in a bottle, and not a sun at all? How would I tell these musical friends that I didn’t dig it?

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Photo courtesy of hONEyhoUSe.

I slid the CD into the slot on the dashboard, turned up the volume, and held my breath. It wasn’t too far into the first track, “Kansas,” that the goose bumps began to pop on my
forearms. Near the end of the song, where the hONEyhoUSe gospel choir takes us to church, the hairs on the back of my neck erected in sympathetic vibration, and I was in full voice accompaniment. (What an inspired choice, made in the studio on the fly by
producer John Wall and Smith, to multitrack the trio into a glorious choir.)

I herewith publically apologize to Mandy Buchanan, Yvonne Perea, Hillary Smith, and their djembe-playing percussionist Savannah Thomas for ever having had a doubt. Medicine Lodge burns hotter and sweeter than Sun.  Continue reading →