Greg Abate - Positive Energy (2025)

Veteran saxophonist Greg Abate, while based in New England, has been visiting New Mexico on a yearly basis for quite some time. While there, he always renews his ties with pianist John Rangel with whom he has collaborated for 16 years. Despite their longtime friendship, Positive Energy is their first recording together.

While Abate is skilled on several reed instruments including the flute, he sticks to the alto sax (his strongest ax) throughout Positive Energy. A superior bop-based player, on this session he adapts to the modal playing of Rangel, sounding at his most modern. Their quartet with bassist Terry Burns and drummer David Post (who have occasional brief solos) performs six Abate originals, four songs by the pianist, and the standard “Easy Living.”

The new material, which falls into the modern post-bop mainstream, inspires consistently inventive statements by Abate and Rangel. The opener, “Positive Energy”, has Rangel playing a rhythm a little reminiscent of “Seven Steps To Heaven” while the melody and chord changes are quite original. While one could imagine Thelonious Monk composing John Rangel’s dark “Monkism”, the pianist makes no attempt to copy Monk and instead plays in his own adventurous style. “Lookin’ Ahead” lives up to its title with Abate sounding quite passionate and stretching himself. Some of the other songs include the jazz waltz “Hazy Moon”, “Song For My Brother” which has some soulful piano playing, Rangel’s somewhat mournful “Little Bird”, and his “Growing All The Time” which is a relative of “What Is This Thing Called Love”. The latter, along with “J.A.G.” (based on “When Lights Are Low”), is the most boppish of the originals. “Giving Flight To Imagination” and “Deep Seated Reality” are serious modal numbers that feature Rangel in top form while Abate makes a masterful statement on “Easy Living”.

Greg Abate and John Rangel bring out the best in each other throughout Positive Energy. It is very good that they have finally produced a joint recordin ---Scott Yanow for the New York City Jazz Record Greg Abate – alto sax

John Rangel – piano
Terry Burns – bass
David Post – drums