Daunik Lazro • Benjamin Duboc • Mathieu Bec « Standards Combustion » // Bill Meyer, The Wire

The intent is not to torch the standards. Rather, the sleeve’s homage to old Blue Note designs suggests that French tenor saxophonist Daunik Lazro wishes to incorporate fire music era compositions by Ayler, Coltrane, Shorter and Lacy into his personal canon. Lazro is old enough to have heard this material when it was new, and while his tone is bulky, he navigates tunes like « Ghosts » and « Nefertiti » with intimate familarity, while elaboratingthem with lucid particularity. This music has a lot of space, thanks to a rhythm section that brings the necessary energy but refuses to overplay. Mathieu Bec’s drums rustle and retreat, leaving room for bassist Benjamin Duboc to act as the saxophonist’s empathetic shadow.