I get a lot of records from publicists looking for a review, 788 last year. That’s way more than I can get to, but I try to check in on most of them. Last year I noticed that a lot of them had Troy Roberts on tenor saxophone, and even on records I didn’t care for–maybe especially those–I was drawn to his muscular sound. I missed his appearance last year with Pat Bianchi (a gig I previewed here), but I–and Cleveland—will get a second bite of the apple Sunday, Feb. 16 when the saxophonist returns to BOP STOP.
Roberts’ musical journey began when as a boy attending a concert, he was taken with the gleaming brass instrument he thought was a trumpet. When his parents bought him a trumpet, he told them “No. I want the big twisty one,” a saxophone and began lessons on alto at 12.
This was in Perth, Australia, a place that, as he pointed out in a radio interview Sunday, is closer to the Indonesian island of Java than to Sydney or Melbourne. Yet despite its isolation, Perth is home to an excellent music school, the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (bassist Linda May Han Oh is an alumna) that offered an exchange program with the University of Miami.
“I was the first to do it in 2002,” Roberts recalled by phone from his home in New York. “I made connections, went back to Australia, toured a lot with James Morrison, and when I wanted to move back to the States, I explored my options. That led me to Miami for my master’s, which turned out to be a great move.”
New York was the next move where Roberts landed high-profile work with Van Morrison and Jeff “Tain” Watts among others. One was a band called The People, led by the late organist Joey DeFrancesco where he played alongside Akron’s Dan Wilson, whom Roberts called “a dear friend and a monster musician.”
The Akron connection led to an appearance by Roberts’ contemporary-flavored Nu-Jive ensemble at the 2018 Rubber City Blues and Jazz Festival. That gig put him in contact with festival director Theron Brown whose trio of bassist Jordan McBride and Zaire Darden will join Roberts Sunday.
The setlist will include music from Roberts’ latest release, Green Lights (Toy Robot Music, 2024). “The music is all my originals,” he said. “It’s open enough to be played with any instrumentation, so I’m excited to hear how it comes together with these guys.”
The versatile Roberts plays all the saxophones and bass, but tenor, “the big twisty one,” is his main instrument these days. In his hands, it’s a 1960s-era Detroit muscle car: powerful, swaggering and impressive to hear. Comparisons to big-toned tenor masters such Michael Brecker and Stanley Turrentine are not off base and are more than coincidental.
Roberts owns several tenor saxophones, but the one he uses most often these days is a 1951 Selmer Super Balanced Action once owned by Brecker. “Susan Brecker told me, ‘There’s a horn of Mike’s I think you should have,’” he recounted. “She could have sold it to a museum, but she wanted musicians Mike would have loved to have it.”
Roberts played it and fell in love with the sound. Sometime later he got a call from DeFrancesco with some remarkable news.
“He said, ‘Are you sitting down?’I just got off the phone with Creed Taylor,’” Roberts recounted. The legendary producer and founder of CTI Records confirmed to DeFrancesco that the horn was given to an instrument repair master in Japan who overhauled it and gave it to Mike Brecker, but Taylor’s revelation was the name of the previous owner, Stanley Turrentine
“That was Stanley’s horn that he used on most of the CTI records,” Roberts said. “I went through a massive phase of wanting to sound like Stanley I just couldn’t get enough of that sound.” The horn’s impressive lineage notwithstanding, but the sound Roberts gets on it is his own. Coming off his gig with Bianchi, Roberts called BOP STOP “a perfect sounding room,” adding, “This will be special.”
Troy Roberts Quartet ft. the Theron Brown Trio Sunday., Feb. 16, 7 p.m., BOP STOP, 2920 Detroit Rd. Cleveland, Tickets $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
