The Andy Sugg Group - Tenorness (2018)

Australian saxophonist Andy Sugg’s recent album,Tenorness, is nothing less than a deeply felt love letter to his instrument. Recorded with two different Andy Sugg Groups in those two darkly glittering Gothams of jazz, New York and Melbourne, the eight tracks on Tenorness span the breadth of the tenors expression in modern jazz.

As Sugg mentions in his wry and enlightening liner notes, the sax largely exists today because the visionaries of 20th Century Jazz adopted the visionary invention ofAdolphe Sax and ran with it. And ran and ran and ran with it.

Was it the vocal quality, the blues expression in the machines throat that got to them? Was it the range that the horn can encompass, from the ballad’s indigo sigh a la Getzto the biting snap of a Pharaoh or Trane? Was it the often otherworldlyness of the tone that suggested new poetics as the music became ever more sophisticated and arcane? Across Tenorness, Sugg answers these questions through example and artistry.