Sarah Manning

KCSM DJ Michael Burman selected House on Eddy Street as number five in his top ten new releases list for 2004. - KCSM Jazz 91 - Michael Burman

This is the first album by alto saxophonist and composer Sarah Manning. It will not be her last. Hearing her playing, her composing, and the resonance of the stories she tells, brought to mind what the late Booker Little - a trumpet player and composer whom I had the privilege of recording for Candid Records more than 40 years ago, told me:

“My own feelings about the direction in which jazz should go are that there should be much less stress on technical exhibitionism and much more on emotional content - on what might be termed humanity in music - and the freedom to say all that you want to.”

As you'll hear, Sarah Manning can swing as naturally as she breathes, but what also makes her an enlivening presence in the new generation of jazz makers - she is 27 - is the depth and ease with which she illuminates ballads.

Here, on Habersham Street, and the searching House on Eddy Street, among other intimately melodic passages in this set, Manning plays - and writes - in what is unmistakably her own voice. When I asked her for some of her influences, she, of course, cited musicians with their own signature sounds - among them, Jackie McLean, Andrew Hill, Larry Young, Wayne Shorter (especially his composing) and someone with whom I had many late-night conversations about keeping and developing one's own voice - Woody Shaw.

Listening to this album should clearly illuminate [her] merits. Not only the resiliently personal sound of her alto playing but the continually evocative forms, inner voicings, and storytelling of her compositions and arrangements throughout this set.

Sarah Manning has what I look and hope for in any form of expression - the pulse of life, the life force. And in music - the use of space, of dynamics, to keep the stories moving. I once wrote of Booker Little that he was “a strongly self-disciplined creator of forms that follow his own inner feelings. There is in his work as player and composer a stimulating combination of sense and sensibility, clarity and daring.” Sarah Manning is on that route.

The music that lasts stays in the minds and emotions of the listener, connecting with his or her own memories and desires, and so the stories are always still going somewhere. Sarah Manning creates that kind of music, and I am very pleased that she asked me to do the notes for her first album.
-Nat Hentoff
- Written by Nat Hentoff

“Manning vaults out of the gate with a concentration reminiscent of 1961-era 'Trane. Breathtaking.” - Kenneth Egbert, Jazz Now - Jazz Now (www.jazznow.com)

Saxophonics

from the April 2005 issue

SARAH MANNING
House on Eddy Street (Elflion)


In his liner notes for altoist Sarah Manning's House on Eddy Street (Elflion), Nat Hentoff writes that she "can swing as naturally as she breathes" and refers to the "depth and ease with which she illuminates ballads." A listen to the recording certainly bears out that assessment, but Manning can also create intriguing, well-crafted instrumental compositions (not really "songs," as none of these would lend themselves to lyrics), with Wayne Shorter being cited as a compositional influence. Sounding like no one but herself, she possesses a well-focused, slightly edgy tone that suits equally her firmly swinging, uptempo postbop excursions and her highly melodic slow-tempo explorations. For her debut album, Manning was fortunate to have the assistance of excellent, well-seasoned associates. Her charts require a good deal of sensitive interaction and imaginative execution on the part of the performers, and pianist Randy Porter, bassist John Wiitala and drummer Akira Tana are more than up to the task. Trumpet player Mike Olmos joins the group on one track, where he contributes an exciting and inventive solo.

- David Franklin

“gifted young alto saxophonist…impressive debut album”
- Andrew Gilbert, Monterey County Weekly
- Andrew Gilbert