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Release Date: 10 May 2024
Label: Criss Cross Jazz
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 8712474141920
Genres: Jazz Contemporary
Description
Gregory Groover's Criss Cross debut, recorded on the Boston born-and-bred tenor saxophonist's thirtieth birthday, is a tour de force. Joined by a bespoke sextet of his favorite players, all New York-based, Groover presents a recital of 11 original tone-parallels to family and friends, his intentions anticipated, illuminated and fulfilled by his gifted bandmates.
Lovabye follows Groover's formidable first full-length album, Negro Spiritual Songbook, Vol. 2 (The Message), performed by his excellent Boston band in quartet or quintet configurations, contains Groover's arrangements of, as he then wrote, "Black America's praise music through jazz's evolving language to produce a radical theology that connects you to a higher power,". Recorded in August 2019, it was released two years later, as society unwound from the Covid-19 pandemic.
During the lockdown, Groover had generated a group of "love songs and songs of people I love." In spring 2023, he brought this music to Walter Smith, III, who Groover had idolized as a teenager, and is now his friend and colleague at Berklee School of Music, their mutual alma mater, where Groover serves as Assistant Chair of the Ensemble Department. "I told Walter I'd like to play with some of my other heroes and peers," Groover recalls. "He said, 'What's stopping you? The music is there.' Luckily for me, everyone who I wanted to record with was available and happy to do it."
Gregory Groover Jr. (tenor saxophone)
Joel Ross (vibes)
Matthew Stevens (guitar - 2,3,11)
Aaron Parks (piano)
Vicente Archer (bass)
Marcus Gilmore (drums)
Tracklisting
Gregory Groover Jr.
Michael Thomas
Warne Marsh
Walt Weiskopf
Tad Shull Quintet
Steve Nelson
Steve Davis
Ryan Kisor
Nigel Price Organ Trio
Conrad Herwig
Norma Winstone & Kit Downes
Oded Tzur
Su Rossy Girod, Nat Su, Jorge Rossy
Jonathan Salvi Arugula Sextet
Bob Baldwin
Steven Nichols
