A double-length set from Chicago tenorist Chris Greene – but a package that may well not be enough to hold all the new ideas in his music! We've really watched Chris grow strongly over the past few years – and with this wonderfully well-crafted, rich-voiced album, he steps forward to a level that rivals some of the much bigger saxophone talents recording these days for labels like High Note or Criss Cross! Greene's always had a deep tone in his horns – one that draws from a Chicago tradition, but inflects it with some of the more contemporary modes of later players on the scene – like Eric Alexander, who Chris might be approaching with this set. The range of rhythms and song styles is great – never gimmicky, but expanding past standard expectations – so that Greene's group is playing Coltrane and Wayne Shorter one minute, then Martin Denny the next, then Ed Motta, then a huge batch of their own great compositions as well. Instrumentation is simple – Chris on saxes, plus piano or keyboards, bass, and drums – but there's some wide voices here that really make the album compelling – and the longer length very necessary to contain it all. Titles include "Firecracker", "Deluge", "Day of Honor", "Divers", "Solution", "Papuera", "Clean & Clear", "Institutional Samba", and "Nostalgia In Times Square". CD

Saxophonist Chris Greene just keeps maturing more and more as an artist and leader over the years – a quality you'll definitely hear even before he blows his horn, as he speaks a bit at the start of this live performance – then rolls into some really great work on both tenor and soprano sax, both horns that really show his strong development of an individual style in recent years! The quartet is rock-solid throughout, in that they're very responsive to Greene's leadership and change of mood from track to track – with work from Damian Espinosa on piano and keyboards, Marc Piano on basses, and Steve Corley on drums and percussion. Titles include the originals "Samba Fu Maga" and "Divers" – plus versions of "Caravan", "You Win Again", and "Omi". CD