The billing of Sax Battle Cry, the pair of concerts that Nathan-Paul Davis and Johnny Cochran, Jr. will present this week, evokes the classic two-saxophone tussles of the past: Dexter Gordon and Wardell Grey, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and Johnny Griffin, the various cage matches that were a trademark of the Jazz At The Philharmonic road show. But don’t believe the hype. The meeting of Davis and Cochran is more friendly competition than mano á mano combat.
“I think he’s one of the great tenor players of today,” Davis said of Cochran, “but I don’t I don’t see him playing enough for my liking. It’s selfish.”
The saxophonists are near contemporaries and as Davis told me by phone, “Growing up in the same city, you’re naturally going to run into each other.” Sometimes that happened on the bandstand where Davis and Cochran were section mates in Matthew Bott’s Mojo: the Generations Big Band.
Mutual respect led to other playing opportunities, and last July, 11 months to the day before Friday’s BOP STOP gig, Davis and Cochran debuted the Battle Cry concept at the Hingetown club with bassist Jordan McBride and drummers Zaire Darden and Paul Samuels. That lineup returns for Friday’s BOP STOP gig while George DeLancey will play bass when the battle line is drawn at BLU Jazz+ on Thursday.
The unusual instrumentation had been on Davis’ mind for a long time. “I’ve been trying to do two drummers for a while. I just want to create community, and I figured if I’m gonna have two saxophone players and no harmonic instrument, I’ve got to double up on something else.”
Cochran and Davis make an intriguing pair. Cochran’s sound on tenor is room-filling and his lines are highly personal. Johnny plays backwards “Davis said of his counterpart. “It’s like what science calls dark harmony.” On alto, Davis is all furious, whirling motion, the centrifugal force of his playing throwing off ribbons of bright, urgent incandescence.
That’s a lot of energy on the front line, but it will be more than matched by the unusual two-drummer lineup. In Darden and Samuels, the saxophonists will have a pan-generational Splash Brothers of rhythm pushing them, an all-star tandem of percussive innovation.
The inclusion of Samuels is a masterstroke. The 65-year-old’s notable academic career at Oberlin Conservatory can obscure the fact that he as a member of saxophonist Greg Osby’s bands, he was on the ground floor of a rhythmic revolution that transformed jazz two generations ago.
“He’s kind of a jazz legend,” Davis said. “He kind of came up under the tutelage of Billy Hart. So he’s kind of that bridge and definitely coming out of that school, that hard-swinging 60s stuff. He’s one of the cats, just a beautiful soul.”
True to his billing, Samuels was generous in his praise of the saxophonists. “I knew both of them when they were probably teenagers, and Johnny Cochran went to school at Oberlin as well. They’re both incredibly knowledgeable of music history and multiple genres and they’re very organic in their self-expression and they have all the language and tools to be able to do that in other words just rise above the pedagogy. I’m always interested in the young players and supporting them because it’s not an easy business, as you know.”
Alto and tenor, young and old, tradition and innovation: these aren’t in opposition. Rather they are the engines that drive creativity and set of sparks of delight. When the five musicians line up for their battle cry this weekend, there will be a clear winner: the music and the audience that loves it
Sax Battle Cry featuring Nathan-Paul Davis & Johnny Cochran, Thursday, June 5, 8 p.m., BLU Jazz+, Tickets $20 available here, and Friday, June 6, 8 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Ave, Cleveland, Tickets $20/25, 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
