Coda Magazine

July 2007

Chris Byars / Photos in Black, White and Gray
By Nate Dorward

Chris Byars’ followup to his octet recording Night Owls pares things down to the standard sax-plus-rhythm lineup, but the playing and composing remain as head-turning as before. Though he plays soprano and tenor on the date, Byars mostly concentrates on the alto sax, his bebop-derived fluidity shot through with melodic loopholes and a rhythmic sensibility that works in short, irregular bursts. (The pointed but fragile alto playing of Gigi Gryce is one useful reference-point – Gryce’s compositions have lately been revisited by the Across 7 Street collective, of which Byars is a member.) The rhythm section features pianist Sacha Perry, bassist Ari Roland and drummer Andy Watson, and they play with a deep understanding of Byars’ music – the way that the tunes’ melodic and harmonic twists aren’t mere ingenuities but the bittersweet residue of the composer’s memories and feelings – what one long-ago jazzman called “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Perry’s work on his recordings as a leader and sideman often feel like extracts from a single continuous composition – Variations upon a Half-Dozen Themes of Bud Powell – but his obsessive reworking of his pet motifs has a slippery momentum that’s hard to resist, and his playing on this CD is among his best to date.Photos in Black, White and Gray is an excellent addition to Byars’ small but impressive body of recordings, and a CD that, in its unassuming way, reaffirms bebop as a living, still-growing tradition.