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Alex Jenkins Trio: Black Bird
by Dan McClenaghan
An initial spin of Sacramento-based drummer Alex Jenkins' Black Bird--recorded by the Alex Jenkins Trio (AJT)--brings saxophonist Sonny Rollins' A Night At The Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1958) to mind. Rollins rolled in the trio mode for these 1957 Vanguard shows with just his saxophone, bass and drums. Going on stage in 1957 without a chording instrument--a guitar or piano--was unusual. The album was considered groundbreaking. Now the pared-down trio format is common, for good reason--dropping the necessity of chasing ...
Continue ReadingAlex Jenkins Trio: Tri-Cycle
by Dan McClenaghan
The Alex Jenkins Trio, out of Sacramento, California, has a forthright, muscular sound. Sax, bass and drums--things boiled down to the essentials. Tri-Cycle, Jenkins' second trio recording presents music in an uncluttered style, opens the show with the cool pop and bubble of Jenkin's original, “Scarlet Lullaby." Jenkins drumming style--on a drum kit here, but, much influenced by his studies of the tabla--is busy and unsubtle on this tune in the best possible way-- no whispering brushes or ...
Continue ReadingDan Jonas: The Spirituality Suite
by Jack Bowers
Utah-based trumpeter Dan Jonas says The Spirituality Suite was written as a response to his own struggles with spirituality in the twenty-first century. The music is thus largely conceptual, or as Jonas explains it, “Much of the inspiration . . . lies in the musical interval of a perfect fourth. The interval can be either consonant or dissonant, where the context in which it appears is the determining factor. Additionally, on one side lies a major third, one of the ...
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