Almost every year saxophonist Greg Osby presents a new album with an unexpected new musical story. Because what do you get when a modernist like Osby runs off with old blues classics from his native town? On St. Louis Shoes he blows new life into those songs, with full respect for, and understanding of the past. In the past he left St. Louis and went to New York. There he joined Steve Coleman’s M-Base collective, a band that developed the so called ‘symmetrical’ way of playing. Next to that Osby made a name for himself by working with Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner and of course with the multitude of solo albums that show us a leader that provokes his band in a sublime way. He takes evergreens and forces them open, smashes its contents and pushes a broom through structures, tempo and chords. Recently Osby’s latest was released: the live album Public.
