Eric Alexander - Chicago Fire / 180 gram vinyl LP

2014 U.S. vinyl LP pressing. There's an old saying that a great jazz musician never plays a song the same way once. That could certainly be said of Eric Alexander. One of the busiest players in jazz yet his playing is as imaginative as ever, with the ideas pouring out of his horn.

His harmonic inventiveness is exceptional and he'll run the changes at such length at times that you wonder if he'll resolve everything in time and end up back on the beat, but he always does. He has a big, full, sound, and a ferocious technique, with access to the full range of his instrument, all under super-human control. Both the Bird and the Sonny Rollins legacies have been thoroughly internalized but here Eric explores the repertoire of another school of tenor playing, the Chicagoans. With long-time collaborators Harold Mabern, John Webber and Joe Farnsworth, Eric gives the nod to some Windy City players who helped shape the sound of jazz for decades, Eddie Harris, Von Freeman and others.