Styles and sounds from the tenor sax come and go, but big, beefy and muscular offerings like these latest releases have an everlasting quality that endure through the ages.
Cory Weeds has a big, voluminous and breathy Sonny Rollins sound, working perfectly in this recording at Will and Norah’s in Vancouver BC last year. He’s teamed with the adroit Tilden Webb/p, John Lee/b and Jesse Cahill/dr, focusing on interpretations of classic jazz covers, many from fellow tenor men. His tone is gorgeously mellow as he glides through Hank Mobley’s “Just Coolin’”, digs in deep with a full fisted Webb on Harold Land’s “Vendetta” and goes funky to Cahill’s backbeat on David Sanchez’s “Street Scenes”. Lee and Wbb are featured on the glowingly warm “We Three” with Weeds wondrously lyrical on “Bitter Sweet”. If I could sound like this on my tenor…
Also recorded in Canada is Tenorist Steve Kaldestad’s team of Chris Gestrin/p, Conrad Good/b and a return of Jesse Cahill/dr for a 2021 gig at Frankie’s Jazz Club in Vancouver, BC. Kaldestad’s team is reminiscent of Atlantic-era Coltrane when the create a rivulet on “Garden Hand Blues” with the team adding dark and long shadows to Gestrin’s paintbrush for “Invitation”. Cahill and Good create a “Tunisia” pulse for the exotic read of “Con Alma” and give a holy rolling sway to Horace Silver’s “Barbara”. Kaldestad is in Keto form as he boogaloos on “A Few Miles From Memphis” and shimmy’s to Cedar Walton’s “Bolivia”. No carbs on this high protein diet of hard bop!