Neuma Releases Drew Whiting’s Second Album

Cover of the album being discussed (from its Amazon.com Web page)

All In is the title of the second album of performances by saxophonist Drew Whiting, released by Neuma Records. Whiting has a strong and secure command of saxophones of all sizes; and, over the course of the five selections on this album, he plays soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone. Two of the selections are solo performances, Whiting’s own “They are obviously sounds; that why they are shadows,” completed last year and played on tenor; and Yaz Lancaster’s two-movement suite among Verticals, composed for alto. An “almost solo” composition is Pamela Z’s Four Movements, which she scored for cello and delays. Whiting performs the cello part on baritone saxophone. One of the selections is a three-movement sonata for alto saxophone and piano by John Mayrose, for which Whiting is accompanied at the piano by Kirstin Ihde. The album begins with the two of them joined by clarinetist Laura McLaughlin in a performance of Ed Martin’s “Shadow Dance,” completed in 2015. Whiting plays a soprano instrument for this selection.

The great asset of this album is the diversity of those selections. This is not just a matter of having drawn upon the efforts of five decidedly different composers. Because each size of saxophone has its own unique affordances, the variations in sonority are as rich as the unique perspectives of each composition. Indeed, taken as a whole, the contents of the album could almost stand just as well as a recital performance by “Whiting and Friends.”

I do not think I have played a saxophone of any size since my days in high school. The alto was my primary instrument in the jazz band, but I enjoyed the opportunity to explore the sonorities of the baritone instrument. It goes without saying that those experiences as a performer were a far cry from the technical challenges that Whiting had to confront in making the recordings for this album. There was much to engage in exploring each of the individual selections, and I have to confess that I was glad to encounter another instance of Z’s music played by someone other than Z! (My last encounter was with pianist Adam Tendler this past July.)