Eric Alexander, Like Sugar Review

Tradition as Creation: Eric Alexander’s Homage in Like Sugar

By Nolan DeBuke

Eric Alexander’s career has long been a study in a balance of respect for the language of bebop and hard bop, tempered with an imagination that constantly seeks new contours of today’s jazz. His latest release, Like Sugar, recorded at the hallowed Van Gelder Studios, is a homage and extension. The album is a nod to Stanley Turrentine, which features an excellent ensemble moving through an eight-song set.

The album takes as its guiding star Turrentine’s love of blues, song form, and Brazilian-influenced soul jazz. Alexander and co-producer Cory Weeds have carefully selected repertoire that illuminates these dimensions: standards (“Love Letters,” “The Way We Were”), Jobim’s “Triste,” Mobley’s “Early Morning Stroll,” and originals directly referencing Turrentine’s “Sugar.” This curatorial lens situates Alexander as one who understands the elder master’s grammar and reshapes it for today’s idiom.

Opening the album with nearly ten minutes of hard bop swing, “Jave,” sets the album’s dialect. David Hazeltine’s piano solo flows with elegance and harmonic clarity, establishing a lineage back to Cedar Walton and Harold Mabern. Dennis Carroll’s bass and George Fludas’ drums provide the supple yet muscular framework, swinging with that elusive combination of inevitability and surprise. Alexander’s solo has pacing, interesting intervallic leaps, and motivic development, all undergirded by a jazz-blues core.

Jobim’s “Triste” receives a fresh gloss. The group reframes it in a Hard-Bop Latin jazz context. The clave is present as Alexander’s tenor voice glides over the rhythmic bed with lyrical warmth. His phrasing projects fluidity and rounded lyricism, creating an approach that acknowledges Brazilian idioms. Hazeltine’s accompaniment has coloristic chordal flourishes placed in a deep connection with Alexander’s lines.

This title track, “Like Sugar,” is a compositional coup. Built on the harmonic architecture of “Sugar” but clothed in new melodic garments, it exemplifies how homage meets innovation throughout the album. The ensemble takes on a soul-jazz feel with Hazeltine’s buoyant and blues-inflected contribution. Carroll’s walking line are imperturbable as Fludas’ ride cymbal shimmers with swing. Alexander’s improvisation here is dazzling and all about storytelling. Strong motifs unfold, transform, and resolve with narrative clarity.

Mobley’s writing is often underappreciated for its subtle craft. In “Early Morning Stroll,” Alexander channels its riff-based architecture into a medium swing performance that brims with energy. His solo leaps across wide intervals, building tension through motivic development, before resolving with a satisfying arc. One hears in his approach Turrentine, but Coltrane’s harmonic sophistication and Henderson’s muscular lines.

“The Way We Were” is a performance that captures the soul-jazz aesthetic. In his solo, Hazeltine’s double-time swing flourishes never overwhelm; rather, they animate the harmonic movement. Fludas’ brushwork provides the current beneath, while Alexander’s tenor sings with a burnished tone that is expressive with soul. It is in these moments of a ballad that the artistry of the ensemble becomes clearest.

With its shuffle groove and gospel overtones, “Is It You” embodies the marriage of jazz blues and soul. Hazeltine’s voicings lean into the church tradition, while Carroll and Fludas lock into a pocket that is a shuffle swing. Alexander’s solo balances rhythmic play with melodic clarity, producing choruses that are inevitable and freshly minted. This cut shows how the rhythmic character of the ensemble shapes improvisational vocabulary.

The Latin-soul idiom returns with “Maria (BFFWSA),” Alexander’s tenor glowing in warmth and resonance. The recording balance deserves mention as each instrument’s sonic character is preserved, from Carroll’s resonant pluck to Hazeltine’s crystalline upper range, all wrapped in Van Gelder’s acoustical legacy. The track’s blend of careful engineering and sensitive musicianship makes for an enjoyable experience.

“Love Letters” ends the set with a Turrentine favorite, Alexander offers a reading that encapsulates the album’s ethos of fidelity to the spirit without mimicry of the letter. The performance swings with joy, Hazeltine’s and Alexander’s solos full of wit and warmth, and the rhythm section perpetually supportive. It is a fitting benediction to the set.

The quartet is a true collective. Hazeltine’s piano dialogues with Alexander, both harmonically and rhythmically. Carroll’s bass playing provides structural gravity, ensuring harmonic clarity while offering rhythmic propulsion. Fludas’ drumming is always in balance with timekeeping on the ride cymbal underpins the music, while his comping and coloristic use of snare and toms inject vitality.

Like Sugar is successful in its tribute and a document of continuity by the ensemble. Turrentine’s legacy remains fertile ground for reinterpretation. Alexcander recontextualized without losing authenticity. In Like Sugar, Eric Alexander demonstrates that the tenor saxophone lineage from Coleman Hawkins to Turrentine to Henderson to himself remains a living dialogue. This is an album steeped in jazz’s history and future.