Jim Snidero: Strings
Savant

Jim Snidero's early 2021 release Live at the Deer Head Inn was met with a warm reception from DownBeat—a five-star review, no less—but another recent release by the alto saxophonist is as deserving of attention. Originally issued by Milestone in 2003 but out of print for nearly a decade, Strings is again available, this time courtesy of Savant Records and in CD and digital formats. No full appreciation of the release is possible without knowing something about the circumstances involved in its creation.

Having rehearsed together the day before, Snidero and his colleagues were making their separate ways to Systems Two Studios in Brooklyn on the morning of September 11th, 2001 when the World Trade Center attacks occurred. While his plan to record his quartet and a ten-piece ensemble of strings was immediately abandoned in the wake of the day's events, the musicians did reconvene on October 25th and then November 13th to formally document the material they'd meticulously rehearsed earlier. Today, it's impossible to listen to Strings divorced from the time of its recording and the tragic events that forced its rescheduling. The performances, the ballads especially, assume an enlarged gravitas when the context is so indelibly tied to the project.

Like the recent live set, Strings was released to broad acclaim and sounds no less strong today than when first heard two decades ago. Snidero's front and centre, but he's not alone. Pianist Renee Rosnes, acoustic bassist Paul Gill, and drummer Billy Drummond provide terrific support, and violinists Laura Seaton, Mark Feldman, Joyce Hammann, Cenovia Cummings, Paul Woodiel, and Sue Lorentsen, violists Ralph Farris and Kenji Bunch, and cellists Tomas Ulrich and Mary Wooten do much to help make Strings special. It's the same as the original release but for one difference, Snidero having used the reissue opportunity to add the bowed bass of David Finck to deepen the strings' sound on specific tracks.

Naturally arrangements featuring an alto saxophonist backed by strings calls to mind Charlie Parker's sessions, but Snidero's distances itself by emphasizing original compositions over standards, even if Strings does include two covers. Further to that, he did the string arrangements himself, as opposed to commissioning someone else to do it for him. The calibre of musicianship is high, evidenced by among other things the fact that only a single rehearsal preceded the recording dates and that all of the performances are live takes.

“Slipping Away” draws the listener in with Snidero's bright, vibrant attack gliding across a swinging groove, the members of his quartet ultra-responsive and the strings adding a lustrous sheen. The leader's facility is on full display during his agile solo, but Rosnes matches his for resonance, just as she does elsewhere. Following that scene-setter is the three-movement Hudson River homage “River Suite,” which begins arrestingly when Snidero's lyrical expressions are accompanied by strings alone in “Dawn” and upholds interest during “On the Bank” when the leader exchanges flute for alto sax and Latin rhythms infuse the playing. The suite's final part, the aptly titled “Torrent,” not only features a light-speed turn by the saxist but a high-flying one by violinist Feldman. Elsewhere, a breezy, samba-tinged feel bolsters the swoon of “Ventura,” and the strings and his singing tone are well-served by the rendering of the 1930s song “It's the Talk of the Town.”

October 2021