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Step Tempest goes on about Tom Tallitsch’s “Ride”…

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Ride” is the 5th CD saxophonist/composer Tom Tallitsch has issued and his second for Posi-Tone Records.  Born in Ohio and now living in Jersey City, New Jersey, Tallitsch has a busy schedule of teaching and playing plus a weekly radio show (8 – 10 p.m. Thursday on WWFM-Jazzon2).  This CD features the impressive rhythm section of Art Hirahara (piano), Peter Brendler (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums) with trombonist Michael Dease joining the front line on 8 of the 11 tracks.

The program opens with the title track, an intense “Ride” for the quartet pushed by the intense drum work of Royston and Tallitsch’s strong tenor work.  Hirahara matches that intensity with a blazing solo that displays the influence of McCoy Tyner.  “Rubbernecker” has a similar feel but with a deceptive melody. Again, the rhythm section lights the fire and the leader carries the torch through a fiery solo.  The soulful ballad “Rain” displays another side of Tallitsch’s playing, his full-tone and sustained notes telling a story.  Brendler takes a very melodic solo over the simple time-keeping of Royston and Hirahara’s impressionistic chords. “Life on Mars” is an intelligent reading of the David Bowie composition, Tallitsch’s tenor sticking to the melody supported by Dease’s trombone and the fulsome piano chords.  Dease also adds heft to the melody line and backgrounds of “The Giving Tree” – his full tone adds a hearty counterpoint to the tenor on the group’s reading of Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone.”  Dease steps out on the Tallitsch original “El Luchador“, his intense solo pushing the bass and drums to respond in kind. The Quintet “gets down” on “Knuckle Dragger“, a pleasing slab of funky blues that is ever-so-playful.

Tom Tallitsch is one of those rare contemporary tenor saxophonists who does not sound overly influenced by John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter or Michael Brecker.  He’s studied with both Joe Henderson and Chris Potter plus it’s obvious from his wide-ranging material that he listens to many different styles of music.  The band on “Ride” makes music that not only captures your ears but also your soul – to take a test drive, go to www.posi-tone.com/ride/ride.html.

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Written by editor

March 31st, 2014 at 2:48 pm