Dave Askren & Jeff Benedict co-lead a quartet on Paraphernalia: Music of Wayne Shorter. Guitarist Askren and saxophonist Benedict are joined by bassist Jonathan Pintoff and ace percussionist Chris Garcia for a satisfying program of Shorter’s material largely drawn from his Sixties compositions for the Miles Davis group and his own Blue Note albums. To be successful, a tribute album like this one needs to engage the listener on two levels. First is the obvious one of enjoying the music. Second, and a bit trickier, is evoking the original versions without suffering in comparison. The Askren-Benedict group is a winner on both scores. Maybe that’s due to the presence of a guitar, which Davis didn’t use in this period and Shorter rarely used on any of his Blue Note albums. Or maybe it’s Benedict’s fluent saxophone work, seldom sounding anything like Shorter. All I can say for sure is that the quartet plays very well as a unit, and they do justice to this well-selected sample of compositions by one of the most important jazz composers of the era. Benedict and Askren have been playing together for decades, and their duet performances of Miyako and Infant Eyes are especially lovely. Recommended.
Tapestry 76029; Jeff Benedict (saxes) Dave Askren (g) Jonathan Pintoff (b) Chris Garcia (perc); Pasadena, CA, March 30-31, 2019; E.S.P./ Yes and/or No/ Iris/ Mahjong/ Fall/ Paraphernalia/ Miyako/ Harlequin/ Tom Thumb/ Infant Eyes; 53:09. www.caprirecords.com
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