JD Allen – Toys / Die Dreaming (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:05 minutes | 1022 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Savant

Of JD Allen, Giovanni Russonello in The New York Times said, “Mr. Allen has become one of today’s most exciting tenor saxophonists not by trying to spotlight his own virtuosity… but by defining a new way of playing in a group.” Allen’s current release, “Toys / Die Dreaming,” is his 14th as a leader and builds on his already rich recorded legacy. His compositions exhibit his philosophy of providing short melodies as the basis of both solo and group improvisation; “Get in and get out,” as Allen likes to say. This gives his music a remarkable ever-transforming feel, as if the improvisation was actually part of the composition itself. To bring his music to life, Allen requires players of the utmost talent and creativity and he has certainly found them in bassist, Ian Kenselaar and drummer, Nic Cacioppo. “I found the bad boys of this generation, as far as I’m concerned,” says Allen, “guys who are not afraid to dip their toe in the avant-garde a little bit, and then turn around and play the tradition.” But tradition to Allen is a development, an unending arc of creativity which begins at the dawn of jazz and to which he is the latest contributor to the music’s evolution.
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JD Allen – Radio Flyer (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 54:03 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Savant

JD Allen’s previous recording Americana won widespread critical acclaim for it’s ground breaking melodic and harmonic explorations and for its impressive emotional intensity. While that album presented Allen’s ideas with a somewhat contemplative hand, Radio Flyer moves with a more unbridled enthusiasm, testing the possibilities jazz has for individual expressionism and improvisational freedom. With guitarist Liberty Ellman on hand the quartet presents Allen’s seven original compositions bristling with energy while maintaining a cohesive, comprehensive unity of thought and purpose. Radio Flyer exalts in freedom, and does so with the acknowledgment of the dangers. Improvise, Allen and his cohorts insist we all must, but never at the expense of losing the goal. In-the-moment self-expression can be life sustaining, but beauty is not to be its sacrifice.
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JD Allen – Queen City (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 40:10 minutes | 450 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Savant

In JD Allen’s liner notes for Queen City, it becomes clear that he spent a great deal of time thinking about how the pandemic has impacted his relationship with music and specifically his saxophone. In the notes Allen writes, “Performing music for and with people is what I do and I’ve come to the realization that an audience of listeners of any size is a part of the music; it’s also a shared experience. Covid-19 changed that and forced me to try to remember why I started playing in the first place, the years before I started performing and recording.” The tenor saxophonist’s response to his period of introspection is this current recording, a solo saxophone program. It is a recording full of stark, uncompromising power, affording some rare insight into the psyche of the performer. This is not a Coleman Hawkins’ “Picasso”-toned, I-love-my-horn-and-my-horn-loves-me type of symbiosis. There is a real sense of confrontation between Allen and his horn and, by extension, the audience which makes for a unique listening experience. This is not to imply that Queen City is some severe piece of avant garde abrasiveness. Rather, it encompasses an extraordinarily wide-range of musical languages which communicates an equally broad spectrum of emotions. Melodies of ravishing beauty alternate with angular, aggressive phrases to express frustration, anger, resolve, hope, love and acceptance in what may become one of the most personal and revealing recordings to come out of the trying time of Covid-19.
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JD Allen – Love Stone (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:54 minutes | 922 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Savant

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.
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JD Allen – Barracoon (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 59:28 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Savant

JD Allen’s eighth recording for Savant Records finds the wildly inventive saxophonist returning to the sax-bass-drums format playing with his usual sizzling intensity and unveiling new works which challenge preconceptions while engaging the listeners rather than alienating them.
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