By Frank Alkyer | Published January 2022
The single is something that is as old as jazz itself. It mostly went away during the album era of the 1960s, but singles in jazz and new music have begun to make a comeback in recent years. And during the pandemic, the trend has exploded with artists putting out recordings as they are finished instead of waiting for a collection of work to be completed. In that spirit, here’s an amazingly ambitious, independently produced single by baritone saxophonist Andrew Hadro. In full disclosure, Hadro is a longtime friend of this writer. So, when he said he was working on a new project, it was, “Great, can’t wait to hear it.” But “Regarding The Moon,” his new work, goes well beyond any independent project I’ve heard in recent years. First, it’s musically stunning. Hadro commissioned composer Petros Klampanis to write a piece that would feature the baritone saxophone’s uppermost registers. Hadro has made playing the baritone’s altissimo range a focus of his art. It has required him to practically relearn his instrument and seriously woodshed on technique and control. He worked on this piece for a year before beginning to commit it to record. Getting the single out took some 18 months. But the finished product is worth the wait. This isn’t technique for technique’s sake. The piece serves as a loving ballad, and a bit of a nod to Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” delivered with stunning precision and grace. The music pairs Hadro’s baritone with a double quartet of strings — featuring four violins, two violas and two cellos — along with bass, piano and drums. There is so much complexity here, with the high drama and grandeur of Hadro’s big horn awash in gorgeous arrangements of strings. It’s a very different direction for Hadro. He’s known as a jazz musician who has played with the late Junior Mance as well as saxophonist Tony Malaby. But this is a completely composed piece, much different than the music he created in those settings. So, is it jazz? New music? Who cares. It’s a work of extraordinary beauty. And what’s exciting is that more has been promised. “Regarding The Moon” is part of Hadro’s larger, ongoing project “For Us, The Living,” under which he plans to debut more works during the coming year and beyond. What he’s done here as an independent artist is crazy-ambitious in scope but incredibly beautiful in execution.
