October 2024
Sam First Records—SFR 006
Format: LP
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Earlier this year, on February 16, I followed a link to a live stream of a performance by alto saxophonist Devin Daniels at Sam First, a bar in Los Angeles that I wrote about that same month. Sam First sells tickets to its shows online. If you’re in Los Angeles, you can attend a performance at the bar for $25. If you’re somewhere else but want to see and hear the musicians, you can pay $10 for access to a live stream. Daniels did a two-night stand at Sam First, with shows on the 16th and 17th.
Daniels grew up in Inglewood, California, a small city in Los Angeles County. He took up the saxophone at age 12, and later studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music before moving on to graduate work at the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz at UCLA. The quintet he led at the Sam First gig consisted of Julien Knowles on trumpet, Chris Fishman on piano, Jermaine Paul on acoustic bass, and Benjamin Ring on drums.
Sam First Records has released music from those performances as a digital download and on LP. The vinyl version of LesGo! consists of four tracks from the shows. Daniels starts the title track with a confident, invigorating solo. A minute and a half in, he states the melodic theme as Ring joins him on drums, followed quickly by the rest of the group. Daniels and Knowles harmonize on the melody, with Fishman injecting chords behind them and Paul holding things together with a firmly stated bass line.
“LesGo!” continues with an edgy, searching solo from Daniels, aided by Fishman’s splashing chords, which give harmonic form to the music. Ring plays with fire and finesse, driving Daniels forward while staying close to him. A resurgent bass line from Paul brings the rest of the band in for tandem improvisations by Daniels and Knowles that race around and crisscross each other.
As “LesGo!” comes to a calm close it segues into “Spiral,” a John Coltrane composition that originally appeared on Giant Steps (1960). Daniels and Knowles engage in a furious call-and-response, with Fishman’s roiling chords supporting them. The tune coalesces as Daniels and Knowles announce the main theme and Ring settles into a hard-swinging rhythm. Knowles gets a long feature and plays a beautifully developed solo over Fishman’s rich chords.
The group negotiates a seamless tempo shift during Knowles’s solo before the trumpeter hands things off to Daniels. The saxophonist presents an endless flow of great ideas, playing with intensity and emotion and remaining focused during another tempo shift. Ring plays a dynamic solo near the end of the song and Fishman peppers it with ringing chords and stuttering melody lines.
Daniels and Knowles composed the third track, “Reckon,” which commences with the two of them playing an easy-flowing, jaunty melody that sets the mood and shape for the piece, before Paul’s flowing bass line leads into a section where the two players exchange ideas. Fishman’s comping punctuates the improvisational section. Paul keeps the music rhythmically centered and plays a vital role in helping the music remain cohesive in sections where the other players improvise collectively.
“N**’s N**” is by Daniels, and he and Knowles again state the opening theme. The rest of the band joins them as the pace and intensity of the piece ramp up, coming into focus as Fishman fills in the song’s chord progression.
Those four tracks complete the LP. The download of LesGo! includes five additional selections. Fishman provides excellent accompaniment on the LP tracks, but gets more solo time on the expanded version of the album, especially on “Nothing Song” and “Enjoy,” both by Daniels. Paul gets to show off his skills on a solo intro to Thelonious Monk’s “Ugly Beauty.” The group does an impressive turn on Charlie Parker’s “Scrapple from the Apple” that highlights Daniels’s considerable chops but also gives Paul’s bass a central role. A Julien Knowles composition, “Him,” closes the digital album and gives him, Daniels, and Fishman generous solo time that they use to impressive ends.
Nick Calapine, who handles recording, mixing, and mastering at Sam First, has done a fine job of capturing the atmosphere of the club and the timbral qualities of the instruments. Bernie Grundman cut the lacquer for the vinyl, and I give the LP an edge over the digital download. Jermaine Paul’s bass is more forceful on the vinyl release, and the music benefits from the more defined bottom end. Paul rarely calls attention to himself, but always plays lines that snap the music into focus with an unerring sense of time. Furnace Record Pressing manufactured the LP, and my copy was flat, centered, and very quiet.
The players are all in their twenties and show the occasional excesses of youth. Ring could perhaps pull back here and there, and even Daniels occasionally lets his ideas outrun him. But these minor qualms all flow from musical ambition and will fade as the players gain experience. LesGo! is an impressive outing, the sort of record you’ll point to later when you tell people you have long been aware of Devin Daniels.
. . . Joseph Taylor
josepht@soundstagenetwork.com
