Tim Warfield

Tim Warfield, a big-toned, swaggering titan of the tenor saxophone, has decided to make his contribution to the jazz organ group tradition with One For Shirley. The lady of the title is Shirley Scott, the late queen of jazz organ, with whom Warfield often played in the 1990s, and this set pays tribute to her style of bop-laced soul-jazz. Warfield’s tenor (and soprano) is joined by Terrell Stafford’s trumpet and Pat Bianchi’s organ in a simmering, groove-heavy update of a Scott original as well as swing era and ‘60s pop classics-plus some nifty Warfield originals to put the icing on the cake.

Tim Warfield, a big-toned, swaggering titan of the tenor saxophone, has decided to make his contribution to the jazz organ group tradition with One For Shirley. The lady of the title is Shirley Scott, the late queen of jazz organ, with whom Warfield often played in the 1990s, and this set pays tribute to her style of bop-laced soul-jazz. Warfield’s tenor (and soprano) is joined by Terrell Stafford’s trumpet and Pat Bianchi’s organ in a simmering, groove-heavy update of a Scott original as well as swing era and ‘60s pop classics-plus some nifty Warfield originals to put the icing on the cake.

Tim Warfield, a big-toned, swaggering titan of the tenor saxophone, has decided to make his contribution to the jazz organ group tradition with One For Shirley. The lady of the title is Shirley Scott, the late queen of jazz organ, with whom Warfield often played in the 1990s, and this set pays tribute to her style of bop-laced soul-jazz. Warfield’s tenor (and soprano) is joined by Terrell Stafford’s trumpet and Pat Bianchi’s organ in a simmering, groove-heavy update of a Scott original as well as swing era and ‘60s pop classics-plus some nifty Warfield originals to put the icing on the cake.

Saxophonist Tim Warfield has been associated with the Wynton Marsalis/Lincoln Center post-Young Lions of mainstream jazz for quite some time. With A Sentimental Journey, he might be making inroads to breaking that mold with a collection of standards fortified by the B-3 organ of Pat Bianchi and given different shadings or flavors. With trumpeter Terrell Stafford as second-in-command, Warfield takes the effortless lead on most of these chestnuts, with primarily his tenor sax and a little soprano. There are three short but sweet songs, including a quaint tango/march version of "My Man" with Warfield playing a Sidney Bechet-toned soprano. The rest are long and involved jam-type workouts as Warfield's tenor is assertive and up-front…

Changing labels from Verve to Warner Bros. and dropping any connection to his neo-bop past, trumpeter Nicholas Payton has crafted a funk-jazz album that unabashedly resurrects iconic trumpeter Miles Davis' wah-wah-laden fusion experiments epitomized by his 1969 opus, Bitches Brew. More slavish to the period than trumpeter Wallace Roney's No Room for Argument, but no less hip-hop-influenced than trumpeter Roy Hargrove's Hard Groove, Sonic Trance is nonetheless far from your average major-label jazz release. Featuring saxophonist Tim Warfield, pianist Kevin Hays, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Adonis Rose, and percussionist Daniel Sadownick, the group gains much au courant hip-hop aestheticism from the addition of drummer/producer extraordinaire Karriem Riggins…