At just 27 years old, Chad Lefkowitz-Brown can already look
back on a career of impressive accomplishments: he's become widely recognized
among his peers as one of the most virtuosic saxophonists of his generation,
toured the world with pop superstar Taylor Swift, played with jazz greats from
Dave Brubeck to Clarence Penn, is a member of Arturo O'Farrill's multi-Grammy
winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, received numerous DownBeat Student Music
Awards, and become the youngest faculty member at San Francisco Conservatory of
Music, where he'll help mold a new generation of jazz musicians alongside
innovators like Robin Eubanks, Matt Wilson, David Sanchez and Julian Lage.
But despite having accrued enough laurels for an artist
several decades his elder to rest on, Lefkowitz-Brown has firmly set his sights
in one direction: Onward. With his new album of that title, out May 12, the
saxophonist takes another leap forward with a set of original compositions and
jazz standards that spotlight his ferocious chops and boundless musicality. He
leads a quartet of longtime collaborators and friends - pianist Steven Feifke,
bassist Raviv Markovitz, and drummer Jimmy Macbride, all of whom have been
exploring music together at least since their high school days - and is joined
on two tracks by legendary trumpeter Randy Brecker, who lends his imprimatur to
a rising star whose expressive voice bears comparison with Randy's late
brother, the iconic saxophonist Michael Brecker.
In addition to looking onward in terms of the music that he
plays, Lefkowitz-Brown has shown a savvy ability to cultivate a younger fanbase
through his outreach on social media. With more than 40,000 followers across
platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, Lefkowitz-Brown has found a way
to connect with the elusive millennial audience. In that aspect of his career
he's learned a few tricks from his sometime boss Taylor Swift - albeit on a
much smaller scale.
"A mom-and-pop coffee shop still has to take cues from
Starbucks," the saxophonist shrugs. "I think that applies to jazz
musicians as well. There's only so much that I can take from the pop world into
the jazz world, but it's been exciting for me to see through social media that
there are a lot of young kids out there who are passionate about jazz and want
to hear people playing and improvising at a really high level."
Though still poised at the nascent stages of a promising
career, Onward reveals the fruits of what has already been a wealth of rich and
diverse experience. Lefkowitz-Brown earned his earliest performing credits on
stages in his native Elmira, New York, where he played alongside
then-septuagenarian drummer George Reed, a jazz veteran who'd accompanied
legends like Marian McPartland and Teddy Wilson.
"Growing up playing with George really shaped my
development as a musician," Lefkowitz-Brown says. "No matter how
interested I became in modern concepts, he would always pull me back and remind
me of how deep the tradition of jazz is."
Lefkowitz-Brown continued his education at the Brubeck
Institute, where he was able to play regularly with the program's namesake,
jazz giant Dave Brubeck. He's since
performed on the stages of renowned jazz venues and on more high-profile gigs
including concerts at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, and the Super Bowl,
often alongside Swift. "Experiencing first-hand the process of performing
pop music to stadiums full of adoring fans made me value the importance of
connecting with people through performance, even when playing more creative
music," he says.
That wide-ranging approach, ability to communicate with
listeners and familiarity with the music's history is evident in
Lefkowitz-Brown's playing as well as that of his bandmates throughout Onward.
Having worked and evolved together since their teenage years, Lefkowitz-Brown
says, has resulted in a shared perspective on their own place in that spectrum.
"We all play a lot of different music, anything from free jazz to
fusion," he says. "But we all seem to settle into a home base with
each other. Our favorite type of jazz aligns and I feel good that this music is
representative of what we love to play."
The album kicks off with the leader's forceful title track,
a blistering introduction to Lefkowitz-Brown's muscular approach to the horn.
The mid-tempo "Franklin Street" is a nostalgic look back at his
childhood home, while "Deviation" is a tribute to Brubeck and his
singular path through the music. The simmering "Impetuous" hoists the
description as a positive mantle, while "Blues for Randy" turns up
the funk for a romp with Brecker.
Stevie Wonder's familiar "Isn't She Lovely" shows
off Lefkowitz-Brown's gift for melodic elaboration, while he faces down
Coltrane's "Giant Steps," a trial by fire for every tenorman, with fearless
bravado, propelled by Macbride's driving rhythms. He turns to breathy
tenderness for "The Nearness of You," and closes the album with a
brisk jaunt through Cole Porter's "All of You," transforming the
standard into a blisteringly swinging workout.
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