A Guy You Should Hear

The post-it note stuck to the jewel box of the young tenor saxophonist's CD read, "Here's a guy you should hear." There must be a young tenor saxophonist factory somewhere, turning them out at an astonishing rate; cloning them. Otherwise, why would there be so many of them, sounding alike, replicating John Coltrane and Michael Brecker? I was a little tired of the clones, tired of cutting edge clichés. But the note was from Marc Edelman, the proprietor of Sharp Nine Records. He's never steered me wrong, so I listened to Grant Stewart.

The first track was the CD's title tune, "In The Still of the Night," at a metronome setting--somewhere just short of 400--that would have raised Cole Porter's eyebrows, and maybe his hair. At that intimidating tempo, the young tenor saxophonist was at ease and making sense, a mid-fifties Sonny Rollins kind of sense. There wasn't a patented Coltrane or Brecker lick to be heard. Stewart was not merely holding his own with the seasoned rhythm section of pianist Tardo Hammer, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Joe Farnsworth; he was in charge of it. It was clear that he had absorbed plenty from the period that many listeners consider Rollins' greatest, but he wasn't a Rollins clone. Nor was he a Johnny Griffin or Stanley Turrentine clone, although he must have paid attention to them as he developed. He had a personal tone, fresh ideas, his own brand of wry humor and the ability to engage and keep my attention. About halfway through the CD, during Stewart's loping solo on "Autumn in New York," something clicked. I went to the shelves and, sure enough, I had heard him before, on a couple of Ryan Kisor albums, one recorded as recently as 2005. Stewart didn't jump out at me then. He has jumped out at me now, and I'm happy to pass along Edelman's suggestion: Here's a guy you should hear.

As this week rolls along, the Rifftides staff will be posting brief observations on other CDs, some recent, some not.