John Alvey, Album Release Show, Nashville Jazz Workshop, Saturday, January 25, 7:30 p.m.
It isn’t very often that the terms “restrained” and “tactful” signify strong praise for a jazz album, but that’s the overall impression that the aptly-titled “Loft Glow,” released late last August, leaves one with. The debut album as a leader for veteran Nashville drummer John Alvey makes the best possible use of his locally-based sextet on its six tracks, with all three horn players—trombonist Roland Barber, alto player Jovan Quallo, and tenor sax Joel Frahm–finding generous solo time on a generally humble and well-honed but subtly varied mix of post-bop, blues, and ballad selections. Variations in tone, speed, and other dynamics even within the same songs are what drive the best arrangements on the album, amounting to a truly collective, equally participatory enterprise where no single player goes over the top or continually strives to be the dominant voice of the group. The rhythm section consisting of bassist Jacob Jezioro, pianist Matt Endahl, and Alvey himself also finds just the right places to be assertive, usually in transitions between the solos and the heads, and generally is strongest in its connective role, with the bass and drums drawing a strong but shifting platform for the three horns, along with the pianist’s suggestive framing, quiet solos, and soft comping guiding the songs. It’s a group enterprise from start to finish, with three original compositions from Alvey, Barber, and Quallo intermingled with carefully selected, less widely covered songs from Benny Golson, Ron Carter, and John Stubblefield. For Saturday’s show, the sextet, with MTSU sax professor Don Aliquo subbing for Frahm, will revisit all the tracks on the album as well as bring its characteristically tight-knit and balanced arrangements to other works.
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Bill Levine is currently the Director of Graduate English at MTSU, where he has been employed since 1998. Since 1993, he has intermittently published and produced radio segments on jazz and other genres of music for the Houston Press, Nashville Scene, Allaboutjazz.com, American Songwriter, WMOT-FM, and several other venues. He also writes scholarly articles in the emerging field of New Jazz Studies and is completing a book manuscript on the history of jazz influences in all major genres of Nashville music.
