IAJRC Journal

The Research and Reviews Quarterly of
The International Association of Jazz Record Collectors

Vol 39 No. 2 - May 2006

Producer/engineer/photographer Luke Kaven started Smalls Records to document the music of pianist Frank Hewitt. In a twist befitting his neglected career, Hewitt passed away in 2002, just as the first album neared release. The latest (and the third in the series) is Four Hundred Saturdays, Kaven’s estimate of the times that The Frank Hewitt Quintet too over in the wee hours of the morning. The CD presents the entire set of one such night, four extended explorations of a pair of standards followed a pair of jazz compositions. In Chris Byars on tenor and Mike Mullins on alto, Hewitt had a pair of fluidly logical improvisers with an abundance of ideas and ready to stretch out. The pianist’s comping is tart and assertive. He’s also a wonderful soloist, brightly melodic with an effective two-handed attack and an architectural sense of the structure of his improvisations. The elastic time and instant responses of bassist Ari Roland coupled with the imperturbably swinging Jimmy Lovelace combine to give the music an appropriately springy early morning feel. It’s hard to resist jazz this honest and real, and why would you want to? Hewitt’s gone, but at least we’ll have something to remember him by.

-- Stuart Kremsky