Today is the release date for the latest album produced by Queen Bee Records. The title of the album is Dahlia, and several of the performers will probably be familiar for those following releases on this label. The leader is saxophonist Beth Schenck (also composer of all ten of the album tracks), who was last encountered on this site when the Sifter quartet released its Flake/Fracture album.
Beth Schenk (center) performing with her quintet members (left-to-right) Cory Wright, Jordan Glenn, Lisa Mezzacappa, and Matt Wrobel (photograph by Dyanne Cano, courtesy of Queen Bee Records)
On Dahlia Schenck plays alto saxophone, joined on the front line by tenor saxophonist Cory Wright. As on the Sifter album, rhythm is provided by Lisa Mezzacappa on acoustic bass and drummer Jordan Glenn. For Schenck’s quintet album they are joined by Matt Wrobel on guitar.
This is yet another Queen Bee release that is a little less than an hour in duration. While Schenck is the composer of all of the tracks, improvisation is shared generously among all five of the performers. I have to confess to a personal interest in Wright when he is playing bass clarinet. I had an opportunity to try playing that instrument in high school, and I quickly fell in love with its low-register sonorities. Indeed, when taken as a whole, the album tends to reflect on the interplay of the different registers in which the tunes unfold.
I have to confess that I am no stranger to this quintet. I had the opportunity to see them perform at Mr. Tipple’s Jazz Club in March of 2024. I was particularly taken with the performance of “Dinner with Carla,” which Schenk had recently composed as a memorial to Carla Bley. Fortunately, Schenk included this piece as the final track on her new Dahlia album. It would thus be fair to say that this new album reverberates into my own personal experiences, but isn’t any listening experience a personal one?
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