RHEA RECORDS (RELEASED OCTOBER 15)
What a coincidence. I had just finished reading Gary Carner’s Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer when a CD from Canadian baritone saxophonist Shirantha Beddage arrived in my mailbox. Like Adams, Beddage exhibits blazing speed, a deep sound and the ability to shift effortlessly from soft-spoken passages to aggressive ones. He does all that, while also composing and arranging, on Departures, his fourth outing as a leader. For the album, he assembled a group of Canadian musicians including trumpeter Kevin Turcotte, pianist Florian Hoefner, bassist Jodi Proznick and drummer Jim Doxas. Although these musicians had no previous experience performing Beddage’s music, it certainly doesn’t show. Whether performing as a quintet or quartet, they tackle six Beddage compositions, two songs from a collection of poems used in the courtly music of the Kendayan kings of Sri Lanka centuries ago — Beddage is a second-generation Sri Lankan Canadian — and a standard. The full quintet is featured on the prayer-like “Musaldi Vannama,” one of the Sri Lanka-inspired tunes, which is accentuated by the leaps and bounds of Beddage’s solo. The quintet also performs “Circling,” a tune written to celebrate the legacy of Kenny Wheeler that opens like a ballad before evolving into an upbeat jazz waltz. Beddage and Turcotte engage in inspired call-and-response passages, while Hoefner delivers a spirited piano solo propelled by the horn section’s vamp. Turcotte sits out on “Ukusa Vannama,” the other Sri Lanka-inspired tune; “The Pickled Herring Blues,” an unconventional funky blues that allows each member of the quartet to stretch on chorus after chorus; the title track, whose contemporary blues feel shifts back and forth between straight-ahead and Latin grooves; and a thoughtfully arranged version of Vernon Duke’s “Autumn in New York,” allowing Beddage to luxuriate on the beauty of the tune. Hoefner sits out on “Hey Jimmy,” a loping hard-bop swinger grounded by Proznick’s strong walking bass line and Doxas’ rhythmic punch. Carner concludes Pepper Adams: Saxophone Trailblazer writing that “Pepper Adams approach continues to serve as a lodestar for all his progeny.” Beddage is a prime example, not only in his playing but also in his composing and arranging skills as well as his ability to surround himself with like-minded musicians.
BOTTOM LINE: On Departures, baritone saxophonist Shirantha Beddage bridges the gap between the traditional hard bop associated with those swinging Pepper Adams/Donald Byrd sessions and the range of unique themes he brings to a group of Canadian musicians who had never performed his music. You’d never know it from the way these musicians gel as they navigate Beddage originals, Sri Lanka-inspired songs and a sensitive version of “Autumn in New York.”
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