In the January issue of Downbeat Magazine!
Brandon Sander’s “Compton’s Finest” was included in Downbeat Magazine’s list of Best Albums of 2023.
Pick up a copy on newsstands today!
NEW ALBUM!
Brandon Sanders: Compton’s Finest
(Savant Records)
Now Available!
Featuring vibraphone great Warren Wolf and young singing star Jazzmeia Horn, also draws from Sanders’s parallel career as a social worker. “It’s about trying to lift people’s spirits,” he says. “That’s what I try to do as a social worker. It’s about making sure that people leave feeling different than when they came in.”
ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM
REVIEW IN DOWNBEAT
KANSAS ALUMNI MAGAZINE: Beat of a different drum: Brandon Sanders makes midlife musical debut
The opening bars of “Compton’s Finest,” the debut album from Kansas City-born jazz musician Brandon Sanders, sends a message borne on a triumphant drumbeat its creator calls Latinesque.
The rhythm is syncopated, the tempo snappy. A cymbal bell rings steady as rain, punctuated by a clap of the snare rim and a thunder roll on the small and floor toms. For 10 seconds Sanders’ beat stands alone, before his bandmates on tenor sax, piano, bass and vibraphone jump in for a swinging take on the jazz classic “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise.” The intro is an eight-bar mission statement, a declaration of intent in 4/4 time: This is a drummer’s record.
“That rhythm is letting you know, ‘OK, here comes something,’” says Sanders, c’94, g’98, who at 52 has released his first recording after spending three decades learning to play the drums, which he picked up at the relatively late age of 25. “You’re letting people know that you’re a drummer,” he says, “without taking a crazy solo.”
