Gary Smulyan - Bird's Eye Encounter! (Live) (2019)

"One of jazz’s best baritone saxists, Gary Smulyan, teams up with the Coltrane-inspired tenor of Ralph Moore on this sizzling 2018 concert recorded at the Bird’s Eye in Basel, Switzerland. The rest of the team, Olivier Hutman/p, Stephan Kurmann/b and Bernd Reiter/dr are crisp and adroit, cooking on the bebop pieces like “Elusive” and the mercurial tempo’d “In and Out.” Smulyan’s got a gigantic sound on the bari, sounding like a growling V8 engine on the relaxed and warm “Old Folks” and forming a formidable front line with Moore on “Verdandi” and the faster than normal “Body and Soul.” Moore gives advanced harmonics to “Body and Soul” and Hutman’s got strong digital muscles flexing throughout, with everyone getting a chance to stretch out and get an aria. The muscles are flexing at this Gold’s Gym of a concert set."