Cadence April-May-June 2011 Alexander McCabe "Quiz" By Ernest Barteldes

A spirited set of jazz is offered on [Alexander McCabe's "Quiz"] from a talented acoustic group led by alto sax player Alexander McCabe. With influences from both the bebop and Coltrane schools, McCabe’s playing has a fiery quality reminiscent of the great altoist Jackie McLean. His five original compositions include “Weezie’s Waltz,” a seemingly innocuous waltz with interesting impish twists in the time, an up-tempo blues “Lonnegan,” a more conventional and pretty waltz “Kalido,” and more exploratory pieces “Quiz” and “St. Pat.” The two standards present McCabe in Trane-like form on “Good Morning Heartache” and in more mainstream form on a fine version of “How Little We Know,” the latter displaying McCabe as quite lucid in a free-blowing Gary Bartz-like style

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