Ensemble: Nick Mazzarella Trio

Label: Sonichla Records

Release Date: October 5, 2011

Personnel:
Nick Mazzarella – alto saxophone
Anton Hatwich – bass
Frank Rosaly – drums

Track Listing:
1. This is Only a Test
2. Do Not Disturb
3. Sundown
4. Newsprint
5. Clockwork
6. For Henry
7. Boarding Pass
8. A Memory for Faces
9. Circumstantialism

All compositions by Nick Mazzarella (BMI).

Production Credits:
Recorded live at the Hungry Brain in Chicago by Todd Carter on May 8, 2011.
Mixed at Shape Shoppe Studio in Chicago by Nick Broste.
Mastered by Griffin Rodriguez.
Artwork by Jonathan Krohn.

Reviews:

Downbeat (3 stars)

Alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella has been turning heads within Chicago’s vibrant jazz and impro-vised community over the last cou-ple of years, and with his second album he seems poised to keep attracting notice. From the opening notes of the title track, his admiration for Ornette Coleman is glaring. In fact, the listener would be forgiven for mistaking the opening burst of the tune for Coleman’s “The Fifth Of Beethoven.” The 27-year-old reedist doesn’t deny Coleman’s influence, yet while many of Mazzarella’s original themes here echo the melodic joy of his musical model, once he’s zoomed past the head of those pieces he tends to let loose in a way that’s increasing of his own design.In a sense this blistering live set—with excellent support from his long-running rhythm section of bassist Anton Hatwich and drummer Frank Rosaly—captures Mazzarella in transition. His torrid solos here often leap into the fire breathing realm of late-’60s John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, stoked by the pure energy of his cohorts, yet any apparent stylis-tic schizophrenia feels like the saxophonist emerging from a cocoon, with great promise on the horizon. Still, This Is Only A Test is nothing to sneeze at; there’s infectious ebullience across the whole collection, and Mazzarella deftly balances his extroverted impulses with a beautiful tenderness on a ballad like “A Memory For Faces.”

– Peter Margasak