![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/515peb4N-2L.jpg\")
<\/a>Tenor saxophonist Allen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brief liner notes are addressed to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hello Dearest,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d who is not identified. Allen tells the object of his affection,<\/p>\n‘True confession: playing the melody while knowing the lyrics is like drinking champagne alone and laughing at yourself all night long. I figured you would get a kick out of hearing me play someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story, for a change. Hope you know that I live only to hear you say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6hmmm\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s different.’<\/p>\n
Allen is a successor to the great tenor saxophonist Ben Webster in terms of adoring both the melody and the lyric. Webster once famously said that not remembering the lyrics made him stop playing in the midst of a solo. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I forgot the words,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he explained to his band and a puzzled audience. In this collection, you can practically hear Allen thinking<\/em> the words as he plays the melodies of nine Great American Songbook ballads and one folk song. He never strays far the songs\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 spirits, keeping them alive with allusions to the melodies during his improvisations. He has a big, deep sound and applies relaxed tempos even to pieces customarily played at rapid clips; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Put On A Happy Face,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for instance, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gone With The Wind.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Along with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stranger In Paradise, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re My Thrill,\u00e2\u20ac\u0153 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why Was I Born\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the others, Allen includes \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a song recorded over the years by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Leon Bibb and dozens of other traditional performers. He makes it as beautiful as the beloved standards.<\/p>\nAllen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rhythm section of guitarist Liberty Ellman, bassist Greg August and drummer Rudy Royston gives him solid, relaxed support. Using wire brushes, Royston often accompanies Allen in a way suggesting that he is thinking as if he were a melody instrumentalist feeding chords to the soloist.<\/p>\n
This is a thoughtful and lyrical album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to go traveling, even knowing that the mailman, FedEx and UPS will have delivered more albums than anyone could possibly hear without giving up sleeping, eating and cycling. Catching up with all of that music is out of the question, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll try\u00e2\u20ac\u201dears open, nose to the grindstone. JD Allen, Lovestone”\u00a0(Savant) Tenor saxophonist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}