Chris Cheek - Saturday Songs

The tremendously talented saxophonist/composer Chris Cheek has come to feel at home in a variety of musical contexts, from the infectious grooves of Brooklyn Boogaloo Blowout to the challenging global music of Guillermo Klein. Weaned on rock and country while growing up in the 1970s St. Louis, Cheek’s initial musical forays playing Top 40, rock and funk tunes at weddings and private parties made him comfortable with blues based music and a fan of the guitar.

On his new recording, Saturday Songs, Cheek has utilized a multitude of techniques and influences to generate compositions that are stimulating to musical theorists and foot tappers alike. The effectiveness of his compositions lays in his ability to write good songs, regardless of the techniques used but often employing simple elements that make the music stick with the listener.

Much of his compositional style’s effectiveness stems from his love and use of the guitar. Cheek has always been drawn to the instrument and its openness of sound, the plugged-in aspects of the electric guitar and bass being literal driving elements of his ensemble’s sound. The fret masters that he enlists for the recording include guitarist Steve Cardenas, pedal steel expert David Soler and electric bassist Jaume Llombard. The musical polymath Jorge Rossy rounds out the ensemble on drums, vibes and marimba. The addition of the vibes and marimba added a certain flexibility that Cheek enjoyed, these fixed pitch instruments blended well with the non-fixed pitch of the pedal steel.

Cheek has maintained a long and fruitful collaboration with Cardenas over his years in New York. His relationship with the Barcelona based Rossy has been just as long and fruitful, as the drummer was once a New Yorker himself and an integral member of the 1990s and 2000s scene. It wasn’t until recently that Cheek met Spaniards Soler and Llombard, he played with the former as a member of the Bridge Trio and the latter as a multi-instrumentalist from Barcelona.

The quintet came together for a short tour of Spain, where they had a memorable visit to the Alhambra in Granada (the source of the group’s whimsical photo). Originally planning to record at Rossy’s home studio, the group moved the sessions to Supertone Studios in Estivella, Spain under Rossy’s recommendation.

The pieces that Cheek brought to record come from various inspirational sources. A handful of pieces utilize a method of symmetry in composing where Cheek takes changes and/or melody from well-known compositions and rearranges them to create all new pieces, mainly through mirroring. Other pieces come from other practices and inspirations, ranging from rock progenitors to ancient calculating methods.