Dayna Stephens

Closer Than We Think

Cellar Music Group

Mighty saxophonist, composer, and educator Dayna Stephens steps forward with a bold new sound on his twelfth album, Closer Than We Think Now, his debut for the Cellar Music Group. You’ve seen him mostly as a sideman on these pages. He’s played with legends such as Billy Hart and Kenny Barron and contemporaries Gerald Clayton and Gretchen Parlato. He’s also been mentored by the legendary Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock. Stephens is widely acclaimed, having won the DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist in 2019. He teaches at both the Manhattan School of Music and William Paterson University and sourced some of the musicians in this new group due to his role as educator.

Stephens met guitarist Emmanuel Michael in September 2022 as a student at the Manhattan School of Music. Michael brings one of the more distinctive guitar sounds you’ll hear on any jazz record. Bassist Kenoa Mendenhall was first encountered by Stephens at the Stanford Jazz Workshop. You may recognize her name as she is a member of Joel Ross’ Good Vibes ensemble. Drummer Jongkuk Kim should also be familiar as he has played with  the Mike DiRubbo Quartet and Simon Moullier Trio which we’ve covered here, as well as with many others. Stephens plays tenor and EWI (heard extensively on the fusion album 2021’s Pluto Juice) while fiery trumpeter and integral member of the Cellar Music Group Jeremy Pelt plays on a track ideally suited for him. The choice of guitar rather than piano owes in part to being inspired by the classic Sonny Rollins album, The Bridge.

Not only does Stephens tap some youngsters for the band, but they contribute compositions as well. The joyous, buoyant “Bubbly” from Michael puts his impressive guitar sound front and center and sets the mood for an uplifting album. Mendenhall leads us into Stephens’ first original, “The Nomad,” a piece purposely meandering as it signifies Generation X which X falls into the category of “The Nomad” in the book The Fourth Turning, which presents insights into the idea of generational cycles over the course of human history. Michael’s guitar solo backed by the percolating undercurrent of Kim and Mendenhall is especially impressive. Like the best tenors, Stephens entrances are powerful. The leader exhibits his bent for the blues with an infectious repetitive refrain in Julian Lage’s slow grooving “Ryland,” a piece strengthened by Michael’s reverberating guitar extending and rounding out Stephens’ deep melodic tenor lines.

Stephens and Michael are fiery in their unison lines and solos in Stephens’ cooker “Scrutiny,” a piece meant to inspire unity and harmony before delivering Michael’s calming “Placate,” with Kim’s brushes accenting the wave-like phrases of Stephens and Michael. The most familiar “ESP,” from Wayne Shorter and the title track of a Miles Davis album, has Jeremy Pelt in the requisite trumpet role. Stephens’s arrangement adds a subtle twist to the harmony that further highlights the haunting melody and accentuates the harmonic resolution created by Shorter. This version is more aggressive and feistier, making the Shorter/Miles Davis original seem laid back by comparison, which owes to Pelt’s trumpet approach but more so to Michael’s guitar providing a completely different feel than Hancock’s piano in the original.

Stephens’s “A New Spring” is especially meaningful to the composer as he composed the melody in his head as he was receiving one of his last dialysis sessions before receiving a kidney transplant. While it has been performed in a variety of ways, the arrangement used on the album with this guitar-driven soundscape, speaks directly to a refreshed renewal. Stephens has such a full, robust sound, especially in the lower registers as contrasted with the melodicism heard on his EWI on the title track, meshing so tightly with the guitar.  Mendenhall’s pizzicato runs shine as well, and the peaceful exit is a nice touch. David Berkman’s “Blue Poles” is a pensive tune with the EWI mingling with the guitar, creating melancholy but gorgeous harmonics. When Stephens enters on tenor, his cascading runs, and emphatic statements brighten the piece as it gathers momentum. Michael delivers an explorative solo, and the full ensemble returns it to its ethereal beginnings. That atmospheric quality segues nicely to the closer, Julian Shore’s “Bach Home” which features a richly synthed EWI that yields to a probing bass turn from Mendenhall which Kim at first supports gently, gradually raising the temperature. In contrast to the buoyant joy that began the album, we’re in a dreamland now, a rather mysterious one at that.

Stephens’ new group suits him well. This soundscape stands on its own as a distinctive, spicy, contemporary brew.

• Jim Hynes

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