This inaugural self-titled record by saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet would get a high rating just on the strength of its two covers, both of them warm slow ballads: Charlie Haden’s “First Song” which appropriately opens here, and Wayne Shorter’s “Lady Day.” Both give lots of room for guitarist Julian Lage and Lovano to showcase their tone, control, and easy way with melody and improv, and lift bassist Asante Santi Debriano and drummer Will Calhoun out of mere supporting rhythmic roles to the realm of full partners in song sculpture.
This is for the most part a quieter affair than I am accustomed to hearing from Lovano, whose signature tenor sound I find quite muscular. In addition to those two cover ballads, much of the rest of the program, all Lovano originals, is less than strident. The gospel inflected closer “The Congregation” is a deep slow groove with, yes, some hard bop blowing but it’s still fairly restrained. Lage’s solo here is particularly memorable, full of blues and mild swagger.
On “The Great Outdoors” Lovano brings out the uniquely timbred tarogato for the rubato intro duet with Lage before moving to the tenor for an exploratory solo in the coda, with Lage alternately comping and tossing out answering phrases. It’s loosely free improv all the way on the unstructured post-bop “Amsterdam” with solo bits from the whole quartet, Lovano on soprano this time.
Things kick into high gear only once, on the Latin flavored “Fanfare For Unity,” with some impressive composed duetting in the opening section and joyous improv by both Lovano (tenor) and Lage. Throughout the whole album Debriano and Calhoun are highly impressive. As Lovano says in the one-sheet: ““Will Calhoun has a way of playing that is so expansive and beautiful in so many directions. …And the same with Asante. His roots, his Panamanian roots, and being around New York, playing with Archie Shepp and Randy Weston and some other folks through the years… ”
Paramount Quartet is, for me, one of the surprise jazz hits of the year.
(ECM, 2026)
