Stereophile Magazine
January 2008

Zaid Nasser / Escape From New York

By Thomas Conrad

Performance ****1/2
Sonics ****

Since its inception in 2004, no independent label has introduced more important new jazz musicians than Luke Kaven’s Smalls Records. Examples include Omer Avital, Chris Byars, Ned Goold, Sacha Perry, and Ari Roland. Without Kaven, who has now released four posthumous recordings by Frank Hewitt, the music of the criminally neglected piano master would have died with Hewitt in 2002.

Now there is another for the list. Zaid Nasser is one of the best alto saxophonists in jazz, and until now had somehow reached his late 30s, and been on the New York scene for nearly 20 years, without having released a record under his own name. His entrance on the opening track “Warm Valley” makes you think of the first time you heard Ornette Coleman. But Coleman is more radical and does not play Duke Ellington. Unlike Coleman, Nasser lives on the far frontier of bop. He is cognizant of predetermined harmony and traditional chorus structure, and his rhythms are more even.

Yes Nasser suggests Coleman in his sound, a slightly nasal, creatively off-pitch edgy human cry. Nasser’s note choices and phrasing and his tonality through distant keys are all subtly disconcerting. Like Coleman before him, Nasser offers the exhilarating revelation of a fresh alto saxophone aesthetic. There is a dynamic contrast between Nasser’s raw tone and his intricate designs, never pretty but often beautiful.

The two Ellington pieces are extraordinary. “Warm Valley” is a graphic rendering of Ellington’s most erotic song. “Sophisticated Lady” with its swooping, trilling, introductory cadenza, surprisingly recalls another great alto player who sand from the soul, Johnny Hodges. Then there is the improbable choice of “Chinatown My Chinatown” from 1910. It’s a perfect vehicle for a flat-out burner, and so is Nasser’s own title track. Nasser’s unpredictable, passionate forms of blowing are governed by a precise, personal sense of form.

The rhythm section functions at a very high creative level—Ari Roland is likely the best arco bass soloist in jazz. The sound, recorded by engineer Saul Rubin, is appropriate to the music: up-close, aggressive, fiercely alive.

Zaid Nasser. You heard it here first.