Rob Ames - Hot Sax on the Boardwalk (2022)

Soprano saxophonist Rob Ames's new album, "Hot Sax on the Boardwalk", features eleven songs in a variety of jazz styles, with an emphasis on latin jazz and soul jazz, and a dash of New Orleans blues. Ames’s debut album consisted of seven of his originals, so for his follow-up, Ames cooked up this collection of some of his favorite cover tunes.

The album opens with Donny Hathaway’s “Valdez in the Country”, an up-tempo burner, in keeping with the “Hot Sax” album name. “Valdez” is a smooth jazz classic, best known for the version covered by guitar great George Benson.

The latin tune “Poinciana” ”has been covered by hundreds of artists, with the archetypal version by Ahmad Jamal the best known. Less known is the song’s oft-omitted subtitle, “Song of the Tree”. The tune does evoke swaying palm trees with eyes closed.

Another widely-covered tune, the soul classic “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye, is jazzed up here, and features a bouncy, 6/6 time signature.

Straight out of New Orleans, the bluesy “Java” by Allen Toussaint has been rarely covered in jazz fashion. Here, Ames overdubs a backing tenor saxophone track in call-and-response to his own soprano sax laying down the head.

“That’s the Way of the World” is the title track from the 1975 mega-hit, #1, triple- platinum album by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Here the tune gets funkified and jazzified with some fine bass playing by Al Hospers.

“At the Greenhouse”, a tune composed by Miami-based smooth-jazz pianist Mike Levine, had never been previously released before this “Hot Sax” album. Here, the tune’s fast latin beat is laid down by drummer Craig Bryan in frantic fashion.

“Starmaker” is an obscure tune by saxophonist “Blue Lou” Marini, who played for years in the Saturday Night Live band, and who appeared in the Blues Brothers movie. Jazz great Roy Hargrove revived the tune on his album “Ear Food”, and here the ballad is played with great feeling by Ames.

One of jazz’s greatest composers, pianist Horace Silver, arranged Weldon Irvine’s latin tune, “Liberated Brother”, for his 1973 album “In Pursuit of the 27th Man”. Oddly, the tune has rarely been covered since, despite its hot latin rhythms and hooks.

“Affirmation” by José Feliciano is another soulful tune covered by George Benson, from his triple-platinum “Breezin’ ”, one of the best selling jazz albums of all time.

The next-to-last tune on the album, John Coltrane’s “Like Sonny”, has become a jazz standard, but perhaps less so than Trane’s other oft-covered tunes. Here the tune alternates between the punchy head and the swinging solos.

“Hot Sax” ends with jazz and r&b pianist Les McCann’s “Samia”, a relaxing latin tune with a thrice-stated melody. Pianist Alex Minasian has a masterful extended solo.