From JazzObserver.com

Toshiko Akiyoshi & Lew Tabackin at Yoshi's

Early in her 8:00 set at Yoshi’s San Francisco, pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi spoke in charmingly accented English about the salad days of her six-decade career. She said that after spending her youth in Japan absorbing and imitating other pianists, she eventually realized “the need to find my own idiosyncracies.”

The highly individualistic voice she discovered was on prominent display in this hard-swinging quartet gig, along with the turbo-charged sax and flute playing of Akiyoshi’s husband, Lew Tabackin. Although few were on hand to hear this stripped-down alternative to their acclaimed big band, Akiyoshi and Tabackin filled the void with a quirky, vibrant brand of high-energy bebop.

Akiyoshi’s style can take a couple of tunes to adjust to, and her unaccompanied solo break in the opening “Long Yellow Road” (Akiyoshi’s de facto theme song) was like a crash course. Swinging yet fascinatingly mercurial, her left hand sounded tart, staccato chords and sudden dissonant crashes, while her right swirled like a dust devil or fluttered willy-nilly like a butterfly, prancing unpredictably and with impish humor.

Tabackin was the dominant force through much of the set. Solid and square-jawed, bending at the waist and knees, Tabackin scuttled a few steps forward or back in frequent moments of blazing intensity. On tenor saxophone, he provided explosive outbursts linked by flowing supersonic flights, his incredible breath control making it all sound seamless. And his tribute to Coleman Hawkins in “Self Portrait of the Bean” poured out like whiskey, a gruff, bluesy ode to the night owls.

But Tabackin’s finest moment came on flute. “Autumn Sea” felt like a kabuki theatre performance, coming down from Akiyoshi’s bright, bouncing intro to a hauntingly expressive, shakuhachi-like solo, slow and vast, punctuated by stamps of Tabackin’s foot and, later, low mallet work by drummer Mark Taylor.

Taylor and bassist Peter Washington kept the sound fresh with brisk, skipping rhythm, providing just the right balance of straightforward drive and agile openness for the co-leaders’ unique east-west bop attack. It’s a sound that lingers in the ear, idiosyncratic indeed, and greatly satisfying.

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From Der Bund (English Translation Click Here to view original German version in the presskit reviews document)

An Amazing Jazz Surrealist By Tom Gsteiger

The saxophone player Lew Tabackin has a long beard – his music fortunately doesn’t.

No signs of being mellowed by age. 1940 born Lew Tabackin still enjoys riding on the fast lane. Sometimes he races so extremely fast through the registers of his instrument, that you nearly get dizzy. Astonishing is, with what kind of elegance Tabackin plays his sprints and salti mortali. He is up to every trick!

His gig at Marian's Jazz room he was in great company. Pianist Dada Moroni is an exeptionally gifted musician as well, from heavy block accords to racy bop-runs to power play ala McCoy, he knows it all. Moroni has his influences internalized so sovereignly, that you never feel like being in a second hand shop. And there is reason for Peter Washington being one of the most demanded Bass players of the new york straight ahead scene.

Jason Browen is the opposite of an spectacular drummer, he never intends to come to the fore, he looks after the art of tasteful swing. The combination in this band works.

That Tabackin’s Repertoire mostly consists out of the times of swing and bebop is no coincidence. Opposite to most of the other saxophone player of his generation he doesn’t follow John Coltrane. Last not least his vibrato rich, full-bodied sound shows, that he intensively argued with the “heroic tenors”, who delivered the soundtrack to the hedonistic decadent era , that F.Scott Fitzgerald raised a monument with “the great Gatsby”.

Opposite to the 14 years younger Scott Hamilton Lew Tabackin is not an diehard nostalgic, but peps his sometimes racy, sometimes opulent rhapsodic Swing with modern bebop and a bit of surrealism. What David Liebman as an soprano saxophonist does with with the music of John Coltrane , Tabackin does as tenor saxophonist with the music of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster a & co. He modernizes them in a very discrete way, without destroying their genre.

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From AllAboutJazz.com

Across the fairgrounds on Bill Berry Stage another veteran pianist, Toshiko Akiyoshi, showed that, at 80, she really is as good as ever. A Bud Powell protege, former band leader and arranger, she vigorously attacked the piano, setting a lightning fast tempo on her "Long Narrow Road." Her co-leader, husband Lew Tabakin, was peerless on tenor and flute. On Akiyoshi's "Autumn Seed," Tabakin's flute evoked rustling breezes while drummer Mark Taylor provided Kabuki flavor. The band also included the wonderful Peter Washington on bass. He and Tabakin collaborated on Oscar Pettiford's "Tricotism," the tenor getting almost in the face of the bass. While soloing, Tabakin is constantly in motion, rocking back and forth, roaming the stage; he gets into it with his whole body.

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First Place, Flute, Swing Journal Reader's poll, 2007, 2008

NY Times
July 20, 2007
Music Review

Sounds to Quiet a Crowd While Recalling Faded Times

By BEN RATLIFF
On Wednesday, Lew Tabackin played at Smalls, a square, shallow basement club in the West Village where the drummer sat about an arm’s reach from the end of the bar. There was some talking in the back at the start of the set, and at first Mr. Tabackin played near a microphone. But then the talking stopped and the place felt like a soundproof room.

Mr. Tabackin, playing tenor saxophone, walked away from the microphone and started moving with his phrases, jerking up a knee and rearing his head back; his natural sound suffused the place for the rest of the set. He used the microphone again only to play the flute - which he does better than most flute players in jazz, with a sound that starts strong and doesn’t flicker away.

But the sound of his saxophone playing was the draw. It had a slight rasp, soft subtones in the low notes and even control through the registers; he scattered stylized shakes of vibrato all through his playing. His phrasing isn’t that eccentric but can intimate eccentricity, with jumbles of intervals, gargling sounds, long streams of notes. He always acknowledged the swing accents of the rhythm section and the arrival of the next bar. And his soloing was full of larger-scale form, too: like Coleman Hawkins, he built up his big statements to a single, brusque falsetto shriek, then closed off the thought with a sense of symmetry.

The set contained a few originals, a ballad standard full of fast, braying lines (“I’ll Be Seeing You”) and some ’50s jazz that ran parallel to bebop: Oscar Pettiford’s “Tricotism,” Thelonious Monk’s “Eronel” and “Ask Me Now.” But its subtext held two larger truths about jazz. One is that we should take jazz’s old, disappearing virtues of sound and form where we find them. The other is that someone like Mr. Tabackin might be best appreciated in a place that can fit only about 100 people - a lousy business model, perhaps, but one that lets a listener really feast on sound, wallow in it and remember it.

Mr. Tabackin developed his craft in the late ’50s and early ’60s, which means he’s old enough to know the importance of a big, round saxophone sound. This was the standard set by jazz tenor players through the middle of the last century - those, like Hawkins, who played in big bands, with singers, in roadhouses and dancehalls, who had to make their mark on popular ballads that dancers knew in their bones.

But he was also the right age to absorb the Sonny Rollins trio records from 1957 and 1958. Those records were buoyant and playful, full of the sense of discovery that a saxophonist could sound good leading a band, without a chordal instrument like guitar or piano, and that playfulness set the dimensions for Wednesday’s set. One original piece, “Studio F,” sounded like a cousin to the melody from Mr. Rollins’s “Freedom Suite,” but the similarity was much more general. The trio’s bassist, Boris Kozlov, and its drummer, Mark Taylor, played bouncing melodic figures with limited volume; they were pursuing a durable ideal of swinging without getting in the way. And Mr. Tabackin, within precise limits, let himself go.

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Monk (Spirits Of New York Review .jpg)
Will Friedwall

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Washingtonpost.com
Mike Joyce
Lew Tabackin, Saluting Smartly

"The Kennedy Center's "100th Birthday Tribute to Coleman Hawkins" at the KC Jazz Club on Saturday night fell in t the category of "better late than never." Far, far better.

Hawkins, who was actually born in 1904, established the tenor sax as a prominent voice in early jazz and subsequently achieved both commercial and critical success. Saturday night veteran tenor-man Lew Tabackin took on the daunting task of evoking Hawkins's deeply resonating tone and bold stylistic innovations. There were reminders of Hawkins's seemingly effortless transition from swing to bop, his daring forays into unaccompanied tenor sax performances, and his commanding (and often surprising) way with a romantic ballad.

Like the evening's honoree, Tabackin displayed great harmonic and rhythmic assurance as he moved through a series of mostly quartet arrangements that featured an exceptional array of talent: pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Peter Washington and drummer Mark Taylor. The performances included a melodically intriguing salute to Hawkins's landmark recording of "Body and Soul"; a short, unaccompanied improvisation inspired by Hawkins's unprecedented "Picasso" period in the late 1940's; and a warmly evocative, brush-stroked rendering of "Self Portrait (of the Bean)," which recalled the late reedman's collaborations with Duke Ellington.

During the concert, part of the Kennedy Center's ongoing "1940s and the Arts" series, Tabackin briefly veered from the tenor sax program so as not to disappoint anyone who came to hear him play flute. As it turned out, though, some of the melodic twist he brought to Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays" didn't sound far removed from Hawkins's bountiful legacy."

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Star-Ledger
Tuesday June 15, 2004
Zan Stewart

Fine music abounds at Jazziest

Low Tabackin salute to Coleman Hawkins

"Good music was in abundance on Sun­day's program of the Aventis Pharmaceuti­cals New Jersey Jazz Society Jazzfest 2004. Marking the 29th anniversary of the NJJS event, Jazzfest was also held Saturday, both days on the grounds of Fairleigh Dickinson niversity in Madison.

"A particular highlight was tenor saxo­phonist Lew Tabaeldn's celebration of Cole­man Hawkins (1904-1969), whose centennial. along with Count Basie's and Fats Waller's, was being feted at the festival. Performing in Dreyfuss Auditorium, Tabackin worked sans microphone, and his handsome, expansive sound - variously grainy, breathy, crying, and ringing -- easily reached the back row.

"Tabackin teamed with trumpeter Randy Brecker and drummer Mark Taylor, two vet- eran associates, pianist David Hazeltine and bassist Dennis Irwin. The set ran from tunes that Hawkins wrote, such as "Rifftide," to his hit in 1939, "Body and Soul."

"The tenorman described "Rlfftide" as a "New Jersey tune," because it is almost iden­tical to a Thelonious Monk composition known as "Hackensack" In characteristic fashion, Tabackin was a powerhouse, using short, swinging thoughts, phrases where he smeared his notes, and dashing lines to de. liver his mainly song-like message. The con. summate Brecker, with a warm-to-crackling sound, played bold, high notes in a Dizzy Gillespie vein, happy, swinging ideas a la Louis Armstrong, and deft, intricate lines that recalled Fats Navarro. Hazeltine, Irwin and Taylor were likewise top-drawer.

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The Columbus Dispatch
Thursday Octobar 28, 2004
Curtis Schleber

Drew Jr., Tabackin take menu of classic tunes, make 'em cook

"The words jazz and hit might seem contradictory together. But when a jazz piece becomes familiar to a large audience, it serves to welcome the listener. That was the case when the Columbus Jazz Orchestra opened its "Swingin' At The Southern" series last night.

"The program was a home run for the ensemble not only because the musicians sidestepped the shopworn tone of such tunes as Jumpin' at the Woodside, Someday My Prince Will Come and Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me, but because guest pianist Kenny Drew Jr. and saxophonist Lew Tabackin nearly outshone the material.

"Drew dazzled with remarkable technical ability, displaying chops that showed his classical training and a terrific pedigree. (Drew Sr. is a highly respected pianist who recorded with John Coltrane, Dexter Cordon, Buddy Rich and many others.)

"Drew Jr. poured it all out during an extended introduction to Ellington's It Don't Mean a Tiring (if it Ain't Got That Siving), deconstructing the melody at a blinding pace. The orchestra came in at a fraction of the tempo, accenting the piano. The streams conflicted at first and then joined in a bracing outing that Included the "kitchen sink" from Drew and a smoking solo from saxophonist Michael Cox.

"Drew's medley of Ellington's Single Petal of a Rose and Prelude to a Kiss featured a lovely pastoral Rose

"The Columbus Jazz Orchestra will present " The Jazz Hit Parade, with saxophonist Lew Tabakin and pianist Kenny Drew Jr., at 8 tonight through Saturday night and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the Southern Theatre, 21 E. Main St. Tickets cost $24 to $48, or $5 for ages 13 to 18t at the Jazz Arts Group office (6142945200, Ext. 3), the Ohio Theatre box office (614469-0939) and Ticketmaster outlets (614-431-3600).

"Tabackin's contributions were on a higher level still. A veteran of 30 years co-leadIng the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band with his pianist wife, Tabackin Is a brilliant and emotive improviser at the top of his form.

"Among the spotlights last night, Billy Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge not only provided the evening's high, but one of the most powerful performances the Columbus Jazz Orchestra has hosted in several years.

"Tabackin opened with an extended unaccompanied solo that twisted marvelously, celebrating and re-examining the song's lush melody. When the band joined, he continued to explore the tune with a structuralism akin to Sonny Rollins' and a storytelling ability that recalled Lester Young. He found the gorgeous contradictions in the song: It is muscular and gentle, emotionally starved and erupting In feeling. His performance was simply as good as it gets.

"He not only made memories but also spurred the group on to a fabulous ensemble performance. Singer Dwight Lennox caught the favor for those tunes as well.

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Globe and Mail
Thursday November 11, 2004
Mark Miller

Tenor Soloist Makes Great Sax

"Come the 21st of this month, the jazz world will celebrate the centenary of the legendary tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins's birth. Lew Tabackin himself a tenorist at least partly in the Hawkins tradition, got off to a head start on Tuesday at the Top o' The Senator in Toronto.

"If it wasn't for Coleman Hawkins," Tabackin mused midway through the evening's opening set, "I don't know what we would sound like. We'd probably still be in vaudeville." He went onto Wall of Hawkins's "firsts" in the history of the saxophone in jazz.

"A case could be also made for Sidney Bechet's significance in the transformation of the instrument from its beginnings as a novelty item, but bechet played soprano and his centenary was seven years ago. So Hawkins is the man of the particular hour/month/year, and Tabackin paid his respects with two tunes, neither of which was Body and Soul, the balled chat Bean - ore Hawkins was known - recorded to such enduring effect in 1939.

"No, Taback n chose instead to play Hanid (that's "Dinah" backwards) and Duke Ellington's Self Portrait (of the Bean), each offered in dose approximation of Hawkins's large-than-life style - his hearty tone, his shuddering vibrato, his sometimes gruff expressivity, his deceptively modem harmonic and melodic ingenuity and his rhythmic vigour.

"And never mind the tunes; the fact that a saxophonist of Tabackin's generation and contemporary leanings - he's 64, Philadelphia-born - could fad such clear inspiration in a musician whose career dates back to the mid-1920s speaks volumes about Hawkins' lasting impact on jazz.

"It also speaks well of Tabackin that, under normal circumstances (the extended version of How Deep Is the Oceam that opened Tuesday first set, for example), he has personalized Hawkins's influence in combination with more recent developments it jazz. His own sound is lighter and has attack striving In a decidedly boppish manner his solos hurtle along, though withou t ever quite getting ahead of themselves or spinning out of control.

"He dances when he plays - dips, knees-ups, back arches, two steps to the rear and a couple sideways, all is if to counterbalance the risk and reach so typical of his improvisations. And he hikes to blow long, unaccompanied cadenzas, either to set up or wind down whatever tune is at hand. That's another bow to Hawkins,, whose 1948 recording of Picasso established an early and high standard for such sob ventures.

"Tabackin's fondness for self sufficiency was certainly no reflection on the tidy support that he was receiving, as required, from his three Toronto musicians at the Senator, pianist Mark Eisenman bassist Steve Wallace and drummer Joe Poole. Indeed, there was a fascinating subtext to the performance as Poole, making his "big league debut with a musician of Tabackin's international stature, worked his way smartly from a rather nervous start to a very confident finish.

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Der Bund
11/17/04

"Full Blast and Risky Tricks

"Lew Tabackin belongs to a rare species, being a Jazz Archaeologist and Adventurer all at once! The first night of his Bern concerts, the 1940 born American presented himself in extraordinary shape!

"The ideas and the air would just NOT run out! His risky though precise tenor tricks have, from a dramatic point of view, a lot in common with the swordfights in pirate flicks: It's about flashy spectacle and ways of getting out "exit-less" situations.

"The hero tenorists of the pre-bop era, with their "raspy" timbres, as well as Parker's ability or Sonny Rollins' sarcasm are important inspirational sources for Tabackin who who becomes sort of a turbo saxophonist! His awareness of history was proved by dedicating part of the set to the late great Coleman Hawkins, who established the tenor sax, almost alone, as the jazz instrument par excellence!

"Body and Soul," the tune that catapulted Hawkins into the jazzolymp in 1939, obviously couldn't be undermined. He plays ballads warm-heartedly as well as in doubletime. Especially beautiful was Tabackin's interpretation of Ellington's "Self Portrait of the Bean." Another Duke "Sunset and the Mockingbird" was performed extraordinarily on flute. Again, he demonstrated to be an expressive virtuoso on this chosen instrument. Backed by a true elite trio, the Italian Dado Moroni, who offered stride- jumps as well as McCoy Tyner voicings, Peter Washington (bass) and Lewis Hash (drums) who were swinging with sovereign authority!

"Tabackin said: "I wanna leave a good impression behind'! This he achieved in outstanding fashion!