Coda Magazine

May 2007

Chris Byars Octet / Night Owls
By Duck Baker

Like many of the best releases on Smalls, <Night Owls> features decidedly modern but not avant-garde music. Listeners who remember the excellent 2004 release <Made in New York> by the quintet called Across 7 Street (SRCD-0002) will recognize this Octet as a related group. Leader/tenorman Byars, trombonist John Mosca and pianist Sacha Perry are holdovers and the musical concerns and aims are similar. Of course the bigger group allows for denser writing, a fact that is exploited in various ways, from the revved-up cool approach heard on “The Way You Look Tonight” or “Conception” to the complex subtleties of Byars’ own “The Inevitable.” As these titles indicate, the book includes pop standards, jazz classics and newly composed pieces by band members. Notable among the latter is Perry’s “In Da Funhouse,” a ringer in the Hope-ful vein we have come to expect from this fine young musician. The title track, by bassist Neal Miner, is also impressive, as are the contributions from Byars and Trumpeter Richie Vitale.

Special praise is due to Byars, not only for heading up this fine, swinging outfit but also for his considerable skills as a soloist. It’s hard to label a player like this, who seems to have absorbed both the cool and hard-bop approaches and come out singing his own song. Whatever we might call it, Byars has learned the thing they can’t teach in the schools; he sounds like himself and not like everybody else. In fact, everyone involved does a great job on a record that has been hard to keep out of the player, and they all deserve credit: those who haven’t already been mentioned are Gary Pribek, alto & flute, Mark Lopeman, baritone sax, and Andy Watson, drums.