Steven Husted - Standards and Then Some (2023) Hi Res

“Standards and Then Some” is Steven Husted’s third release as a band leader and is a return to his acoustic, straight ahead jazz roots. After years of electric, jazz fusion playing and composing, he is once again playing his upright bass and showing his breadth of understanding of the history of jazz, while catapulting the music forward with his own compositions. Steven’s bass along with Dayna Stephens on sax, Damian Garcia on piano and Israel Yanez on drums create an image of mid 20th century New York with a big dollop of modernism.This album is a tour de force of acoustic, straight ahead jazz. Husted says of the session:

“Dayna and I are old friends. I’ve known Dayna for close to 25 years. The idea for doing this record came to me last year when the pandemic started to lift. I decided I wanted to do another record, I reached out to Dayna and he expressed willingness. I was initially going to go to New York and do it but that kind of fell through and I just put it on the back shelf. Then Dayna said that he was coming to Austin to perform, so I thought, “this is a perfect opportunity to do the record.” I came to know Damian and Israel from playing gigs in Austin. They are two of my favorite players here and it just gelled really well. Dayna got to Austin on a Tuesday, we rehearsed on Wednesday and did the recording Thursday. We did it live, all of us in the same room. No overdubs.

The idea for the album “Standards and Then Some” is literally the title standards, and then some (of my original songs). The three originals are “Brainteaser”, “Normandie Gardens” and “Dena’s Lullabye”. “Brainteaser” is exactly that. I wanted to write something where the form of the song was kind of convoluted and hard to follow so it’s almost more of like an intellectual exercise or puzzle and the challenge became being able to be musically emotive over this. “Normandie Gardens” is an ode to summertime and hanging out with friends. “Dena’s Lullabye” I wrote for a friend who was having nightmares.”