By Brian Morton | Published January 2026
The warm-voiced Canadian tenor saxophonist Grant Stewart has worked with this group (bassist apart) for his last few albums, with 2022’s The Lighting Of The Lamps a definite highlight in his progress since he started recording as a comparative youngster 30 years ago with Downtown Sounds. The continuity is important, since this is a group that plays like a group — check their consistency and evenness of delivery on “Nefertiti” — and not like a horn-man and a bunch of hired guns.
Stewart isn’t any kind of radical and plays as if Blue Note Records founder Alfred Lion were still alive. But he’s living and reliable proof that the hard-bop idiom, which may seem as old-fashioned as spear-point shirts and turn-ups when set against electronica and hip-hop situations, is far from exhausted and indeed still a rich vein. Sterwart’s solos are solidly built — try the excellent title track for a representative example — and if they are unsurprising in essence, they are far from predictable or generic.
Tardo Hammer has been with him since, I guess, In The Still Of The Night, which is now about 20 years old, and he is a key component of the music, almost worthy, surely, of joint leadership credit.
If you want jazz that pushes boundaries, breaks envelopes, transgresses and subverts, then Next Spring probably isn’t for you. If you buy into the quiet optimism of that title and enjoy this one knowing that there is probably another in the same vein already in the works, then there are deep pleasures to be had.
