Here are a couple releases by saxist that may be under the radar, but deserve an ear or two. Check them out.
Evan Drybread plays tenor and soprano saxes with a post bop team of Mark Buselli/tp-fh, Christopher Pitts/p-key, Scott Pazera/b and Kenny Phelps/dr. His soprano is sweet and clear, and it fits well with the gentle duet with Pitts on “Waltse” and the delicate “Atlantic Mirror” while rocking out with the gents on “High Priestess”. On Tenor, he has a big Rollins-ish feel on the warm “The Queen of Cuts” and rides along Phelps’ “Take 5-ish intro” to “Blackhall”, proving he can also get funky on the wah wah’d “Woodruff Place Town Hall”. Melodic and muscular.
Tenor saxist Jacob Chung is a throwback to the vintage Blue Note days of Horace Silver and Art Blakey, with a snappy hard bop team of Christian Antonacci/tp, Felix Fox-Pappas/p, Thomas Hainbuch/b and Petros Anagnostakos/dr. Chung’s sound is a mix of Joe Henderson and Hank Mobley, nice and middleweight, and swings with a hipness on “Triage” with the team flexing some rich muscles on “Bouncin’ At Bonafide”. There’s a Monkish playfulness to “Sizzler Kabab” while Anagnostakos supplies the big beat to the gospled “Glorification” with Antonacci at the pulpit. Fox-Pappas is reflective on the meditative “Sanctification” and Chung brings up the butanes for the hot “Conviction”. A blue plate special that goes down just fine.