Jerry Bergonzi Inside Improvisation Series

There’s an old saying that a great jazz musician never plays a song the same way once. That could certainly be said of Jerry Bergonzi. He is an intellectual artist of uncompromising integrity and a bold, original composer. On Jerry’s new Savant recording he returns to the organ-tenor trio format after a long hiatus from it. From the opening track, Cy Coleman’s “Witchcraft” with its hypnotic organ vamp and “bewitching” chord substitutions Jerry gives to the first 8 bars, you know this isn’t going to be your parents’ organ-tenor gig. Bergonzi and his discmates, Renato Chicco on organ and Andrea Michelutti on drums, take these standards down new harmonic paths and use them as a launching pad for fertile and impressive improvisation. The playing is always intense and distinctive, fresh and spontaneous.

A fine, high-powered tenor saxophonist with a tone influenced by John Coltrane, a mastery of chord changes, and a strong musical imagination, Jerry Bergonzi has long had an underground following in the Boston area. He started on clarinet when he was eight, switching to alto at 12, and finally to tenor two years later. Bergonzi was inspired early on by Sonny Rollins, Coltrane, and Hank Mobley.

A fine, high-powered tenor saxophonist with a tone influenced by John Coltrane, a mastery of chord changes, and a strong musical imagination, Jerry Bergonzi has long had an underground following in the Boston area.

A fount of harmonic ingenuity, melodic integrity, and rhythmic authority, Jerry Bergonzi has long been a standard-bearer of sorts for the jazz community. A prolific composer prone to taking deep dives that put serious theory into profound practice, his discography is filled with smart and imaginative originals that twist and turn in unexpected fashion.But a passion for standard gems of yesteryear, the lingua franca of jazz, also fires his creative impulses and figures into his work. In fact, the tried-and-true classics serve as a source of limitless potential for his horn.

2019 release from the jazz tenor saxophonist. "I've been fortunate to have performed with so many wonderful musicians in the past but I live in the present and it hasn't stopped. I certainly enjoy what I'm doing these days." The consistently intriguing Seven Rays is yet another accomplishment in Jerry Bergonzi's productive and significant career. It finds the great the saxophonist reveling in jagged, tightly coiled phrases and steeped in remote harmonic progressions. His angular riffs, unexpected silences and big, barreling low pitches continue to underline how personal Bergonzi's approach to jazz is. Yet the charismatic nature of his delivery and the steely brilliance of his tone proves so compelling that his art speaks eloquently to both the esoteric theoreticians and the most casual of listeners.

The title says it all. "Intersecting Lines" is about the interplay between saxophonists Jerry Bergonzi and Dick Oatts. This is an old-school blowing session in the context of hard bop and bebop, and the focus is squarely on the two horns. Bass and drum solos are few and far between – and brief. Bergonzi's style is influenced by the titans but clearly his own. Oatts is a perfect foil; both men take unexpected twists and turns in their solos, employing sudden moves and breakneck runs with razor-sharp articulation. Great compositions and inspired improvising make a self-recommending release.

A fount of harmonic ingenuity, melodic integrity, and rhythmic authority, Jerry Bergonzi has long been a standard-bearer of sorts for the jazz community. A prolific composer prone to taking deep dives that put serious theory into profound practice, his discography is filled with smart and imaginative originals that twist and turn in unexpected fashion.

Jerry Bergonzi has been making records for decades yet lately, he seems to be finding an even fresher way forward with a set like this that can grab us right from the very first note, and having us get excited all over again about his music! Bergonzi's tenor sound is tremendous – that raw tone that's been building up right from the start but maybe the strongest element here is the group, which seems to have this soaring vision that's even more than the sum of its parts driven on by this excellent presence on bass from Johnny Aman, whose dark notes really color the music, and open up the moodiest side of Bergonzi's music alongside the excellent Carl Winther on piano, who wrote songs on the record alongside Jerry plus Phil Grenadier on trumpet, and Anders Mogensen on drums. The trumpet/tenor pairing, quite familiar in jazz, somehow manages to find all these new places throughout bursting out beautifully on titles that include "Pleiades", "Dog Star", "Darkness", "Live Stream", "Vertigo", and "Repor-Pa-Int".

Boston doesn't get enough credit as a jazz town, from the days of the Storyville club and Cambridge-based Transition label to the star factory that is Berklee College of Music, the city stands tall against more celebrated places like Chicago and Detroit.