ONE FOR ALL

Big George

Eric Alexander, tenor & alto saxophones; Jim Rotondi, trumpet; Steve Davis, trombone; David Hazeltine, piano, Fender Rhodes; John Webber, bass; Joe Farnsworth, drums; George Coleman, guest tenor saxophone Smoke Sessions SSR-2401 (WAV, available as CD). 2024. Paul Stache, Damon Smith, prods.; Owen Mulholland, eng. PERFORMANCE SONICS

Hard bop was born in the mid-1950s when bands like Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers began to play a bluesier, funkier version of bebop. It was more explicit melodically yet more open-ended.

Hard bop still cuts a large swath through the jazz landscape. In the right hands, it never gets stale, because it allows for, and in fact stimulates, creative elaboration and individual expression.

Hard bop has been in the right hands for 27 years with the band that calls itself One for All (after the title of Art Blakey’s last recording). On Big George, their 17th album, they announce themselves with a raucous summons, “Chainsaw.” The solos are on-point and on fire. The group’s pianist, David Hazeltine, has called the front line of Jim Rotondi, Eric Alexander, and Steve Davis “the best horn section currently, and … one of the best in history.” That is extravagant praise, but when you hear how these three nail tune after tune and how they keep one-upping each other on solos, it is hard to disagree. When they slow down for a ballad, like “The Nearness of You,” you can feel the raw power they’ve held in reserve.

Big George is an atypical One for All record. It has a special guest. Sax player George Coleman, 87 years old and a hard bop legend, sits in on three tracks. Coleman entered jazz history in 1964, when he played on one of the greatest live jazz recordings of all time, Miles Davis’s My Funny Valentine. The highlight of Big George is “My Foolish Heart,” where he spills his guts and bares his soul. He calls up the song from within himself, in short bursts of passion, across intervals from keening cries to deep rasps. George Coleman endures.