Altin Sencalar is a big guy. A Texan by birth, he wouldn’t look out of place on the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys football team. He has two big dogs, Navy and JJ, and they slept on the bad behind him when we chatted on a video call (note to readers: it failed to save and a lot of great direct quotes were lost).
Sencalar plays the trombone, an instrument that is associated with swaggering bluster, but when he comes to BOP STOP Saturday, you might be surprised by the subtlety that he brings to the instrument.
Sencalar, who pronounces his name like Sinclair, is touring behind his new Posi-Tone Records release Unleashed. That label is known for hard-swinging, forthright jazz in the Art Blakey mold, and you’ll certainly find examples on Unleashed. Yet in Sencalar’s hands, the trombone can sing, even croon, as it does on the velvety bolero “Buenaventura.”
That song nods to Sencalar’s heritage, Turkish on his father’s side, Mexican on his mother’s and proudly Texan all the way. We talked about this and many other subjects on that video call the recording of which failed. In deference, I won’t include direct quotes but though Sencalar is gregarious and easygoing, his enthusiasm for making music is, well, off the leash.
It could hardly be otherwise given the trombonist’s educational trajectory. At the University of Texas he was mentored by the former Roy Hargrove and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra trombonist Andre Hayward, a player whose gospel music roots nurtured Sencalar’s emotional style. As a graduate student at Michigan State, he studied with Michael Dease, who suggested the young Texan to Marc Free, Posi-Tone’s founder, who signed then signed Sencalar to the label for which he has recorded three releases as a leader and a handful of other as a sideman.
With a busy schedule as a teacher and clinician (he is currently artist in residence at Missouri State University), the New York resident tours when he is able. His BOP STOP debut came in October 2023 in support of his first Posi-Tone release, In Good Standing and featured the NEO rhythm team of bassist Aidan Plank and drummer Jeremy McCabe. Saturday’s rhythm section of pianist Matt Twaddle, Leland Nelson on bass and drummer Sofia Goodman made their own BOP STOP debut last July under Goodman’s leadership.
Three for Altin Sencalar
“I Hear A Rhapsody” must be fun to play (Joshua Smith kicked off the first set of his BOP STOP hit two weeks ago with it). Sencalar sounds like he’s having a blast in a chordless trio setting that gave him plenty of room to stretch out for three rangy and impressive choruses. He rides the bounce of the Austin rhythm team of bassist Utah Hamrick and Daniel Dufour on drums, players whose names were new to me. “Yeah, that was the rhythm section in Austin,” Sencalar told me, and you can hear why.
Outside of the famous recordings by Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd, the combination of soprano saxophone and trombone is a rarity. For In Good Standing (Posi-Tone, 2023) Sencalar took that as a challenge. “Mixed Feelings” is an attractive minor waltz that showcases Diego Rivera, a most simpatico player, on his second horn. Ironically, Rivera, who was at Michigan State when the trombonist was in grad school, is not at Sencalar’s undergrad alma mater UT Austin.
I love it when musicians write music for their life partners. Okay, Sencalar didn’t compose this great Temptations hit, but he wrote this chart during the pandemic as an anniversary present for his wife and to honor his tour with the Temps and Four Tops, his first with a major act. Five horns, including Dease and Rivera, give this chart a fat, full sound.
Altin Sencalar with Sofia Goodman, drums; Leland Nelson, bass and Matt Twaddle, piano, Saturday, May 24, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, Tickets $20, available here.
NOTE: This article was written by a real human being. No artificial intelligence or generative language models were used in its creation.
Red beans and ricely yours,
jc
