It’s been about six weeks since Nick Hempton’s last “Catch and Release” track, and just like clockwork, the talented saxophonist is back with his next one. “Target Practice” is the fifth in Hempton’s series of writing, recording and releasing a single song every thirty-six days or so, and like Tunes One through Four, this one features different ideas and different personnel within the swinging, post-bop form.
For the last C & R, I called Hempton an “ace alto saxophonist.” For “Target Practice,” it’s better to label him an ace tenor saxophonist, because this time, he’s playing the bigger, heftier horn. No matter, he can wring a classic, sultry sound from it all the same. The rest of the participants for this go around are Dan Aran on drums, Tadataka Unno on piano and Dave Baron on bass, meaning Hempton is fronting a prototypical small jazz combo on this outing.
The song itself exemplifies both the soulfulness of jazz and its deceptive complexity: easing back and forth between a Latin-flavored figure and loosely swinging lope, Aran masters the rhythmic cadences that all happen within a waltz time signature. Unno gets a generous time for his solo, which he uses to show off a Wynton Kelly styled language on piano, and then the leader jumps in with his rich, honeyed tone. After Aran’s own fanciful solo, it’s a return to the head, concluding the quickest seven minutes you’re likely to experience, because they could have gone on like this for longer and that would have been fine.
Instead, we’ll eagerly wait another six weeks for Nick Hempton’s next trick.
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