D Stands for Diesel

D Stands for Diesel

Karl Denson's brand of postbop jazz considers 1960s-era hard bop a mere launch-off. <I>The D Stands for Diesel</I> has the tenor saxophonist fronting a band similar in makeup to the vaunted Greyboy Allstars. Here, Denson also enlists vocalist Andy Bey as a soulful, mellifluous answer to early jazz's shouters. Keyboardist Robert Walter provides pinpoint accuracy when necessary and smudgy Fender Rhodes electric piano when the mood is downright shaking. Denson's got an immensely creative fix on music that addresses the hips and heart, the stuff of dancers on a club floor rather than clubgoers looking across a table of martinis. And he's got the goods on his horn. He blows with a harmonically tight focus one second and a reaching scour the next. <I>D Stands</I> is energetic the way Catalyst once was, with a love for unbridled jams and improvisational creativity atop precise rhythmic footing. <I>--Andrew Bartlett</I>