Love Stone
J.D. Allen III (saxophone)
This is JD’s first ballads album and also his first featuring all standards... Allen’s greatest asset has always been his tone and the pace of the ballads gives us the opportunity to really...
Love Stone
J.D. Allen III (saxophone)
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This is JD’s first ballads album and also his first featuring all standards... Allen’s greatest asset has always been his tone and the pace of the ballads gives us the opportunity to really...
About
Tenor saxophonist JD Allen's output on Savant Records has been steady since his 2012 album 'The Matador and the Bull', and this beautiful and intensely interesting ballads album is an assured milestone in his career to date.
There are patented JD-isms: that almost operatic-like swoon and smear of tone; deconstructed themes full of non-linearity and melodic asides arriving unforeseen. As in all of Allen's recordings, there is also a spare Chopin-like quality, with a shadowy, crepuscular character to much of the material.
An album made up entirely of ballads requires a first-rate harmonic foundation and guitarist Liberty Ellman once again proves himself to be the most sensitive of accompanists, alternating between full harmonic richness and skittering, almost pointillistic lines which merely hint at the harmonies. The depth of Allen's timbre and phrasing is such that the absence of a keyboard is not really felt, and his quartet proves again that it is one of the most highly accomplished small groups in contemporary jazz.
Personnel: JD Allen (tenor saxophone), Liberty Ellman (guitar), Gregg August (bass), Rudy Royston (drums)
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
October 2018
This is JD’s first ballads album and also his first featuring all standards... Allen’s greatest asset has always been his tone and the pace of the ballads gives us the opportunity to really appreciate its quality – quite unique among today’s saxophonists. There’s lots of melody here as well as very individual improvisation... A first-rate recording.
August 2018
... the album’s deepest pleasures stem from the luxuriant warmth of Allen’s horn. It isn’t just that his phrasing is beautifully articulated, ensuring that every pause, emphasis and subtle shading carries the weight of the words he’s mentally intoning; his solos, too, take on a sense of speech, as if they somehow were continuing the lyricist’s train of thought.
