Chris Hazelton - After Dark (2023) Hi Res

I’ve always been somewhat of a night owl. I suppose it comes with the territory of being a jazz musician. We feel at home in dimly lit, hazy settings during the wee small hours of the morning. Something about nighttime has always been enchanting to me. There are endless possibilities, and one never knows what could happen before daybreak.

Towards the end of 2021, however, I found myself in a state of darkness that was truly unfamiliar to me. Like every other musician, the pandemic had brought my career to a grinding halt in the previous year. It seemed like losses were becoming a pattern and grief was becoming more than I could bear. At times, I even questioned whether I still WAS a musician. As the beginning of 2022 approached, I was faced with the reality that three of my greatest musical mentors had passed on, and I suddenly felt a new
weight of responsibility for carrying on the tradition of the Hammond B-3 Organ in jazz. Consequently, I found a fresh sense of purpose and inspiration.

So with no real game plan in place, I booked a weekend in the studio and hired friends that I knew could deliver the feeling I was looking for. I have always had an affinity for the sound of a baritone sax in front of the organ trio. Going all the way back to George Benson’s first two albums with Ronnie Cuber and Lonnie Smith, as well as recent releases by my friends Adam Scone and Ian Hendrickson-Smith, the format has a certain grit and heaviness not found in other configurations within the jazz realm.