DAYNA STEPHENS

MONK’D

Contagious Music

Dayna Stephens, bass; Ethan Iverson, piano; Eric McPherson, drums. Stephan Riley, tenor saxophone.

I was surprised when I saw that Dayna Stephens had switched to the bass instrument from his acclaimed talents on saxophone. I admit, I’m a Dayna Stephens fan. I just finished reviewing an album where Stephens leant his talents on tenor saxophone to the Noah Garabedian project. He’s an inspired woodwind player.

What I didn’t know was that Dayna Stephens is also a competent bassist.  He has toured (playing the bass) with Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers. The multi-talented Dayna Stephens also collaborated with Roy Hargrove, Eric Harland and Joshua Redman, exploring his talents on bass.

Stephens has been a lifelong fan of Thelonious Monk’s music, starting in his teen year. For this project Stephens’s bass uses gut strings, (a flashback to bygone days), Stephen Riley plays a vintage Buescher 400 tenor saxophone, and the quartet even managed to use a historic piano that the great Monk himself had played.

A ¾ arrangement with recurring shifts to 4/4 time on “Ruby My Dear” and “Coming On the Hudson” reimagines these Monk standards in a unique, sweet way. The smoky, breathy tenor saxophone of Stephan Riley is beyond beautiful when he plays “Ruby My Dear.”

On “Monk’D” Dayna steps into the spotlight on his big bad bass and flaunts his talents. Clearly, he is quite serious about his bass and musical message. Dayna’s a melodic metronome on “Stuffy Turkey,” walking his bass to secure the time and groove, but also adding his own sense of harmonics to the mix. Ethan Iverson’s piano improvisations are stunning throughout these arrangements, and he tributes Monk in his own special way. Eric McPherson, at the trap drums, holds the entire project steady in capable hands.

Reviewed by Dee Dee McNeil

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