from The Seattle Times:

OK, so it’s raining. Again. But have you noticed there’s been a typhoon of good jazz this winter, too?

Jazz Alley rarely books musicians who live and work here, so it’s a rare honor for tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz to play there Tuesday and Wednesday, March 11-12. But Schwartz, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Emerald City three years ago, has carefully avoided the dreaded “local musician” label and is importing a terrific band.

The soulful and precise, beefy-toned sax man’s group features pianist Eric Reed, who has garnered a strong reputation with his steel-edged, gospel-tinged albums as a leader, as well as side work with the likes of Wynton Marsalis. The group is fleshed out by hip young trumpeter Dominick Farinacci, bassist John Shifflett and drummer Lorca Hart.

With the exception of Reed, this is the band that plays on Schwartz’s crisp new album of ’70s-style, straight-ahead originals, “Flash Mob,” which features front and back photos of Schwartz in Pioneer Square.

Schwartz did not initially plan to play jazz for a living. But while studying in the ’90s for a doctorate in computer science at Stanford University (after playing with Josh Redman in the jazz band at Harvard), Schwartz came down with chronic fatigue syndrome. While practicing his horn in recovery, he suddenly realized he was much happier analyzing the C sharps in John Coltrane than C# computer code. He’s been on the road ever since. Check him out.

Continue reading at The Seattle Times.

 

Category:
Seattle Jazz