One of jazz music’s most heralded traditions is breathing new life into older material. Reimagining standards and well-known songs provides impetus and backbone for ensemble connection and creative improvisation. Saxophonist Michael Zilber and drummer Mike Clark utilize their understanding and mastery of the jazz canon and popular songs on their new recording, Standard Deviation, a recording seemingly familiar yet new.

Clark has provided pulse to innumerable influential rhythm sections over his long and varied career. The drummer’s association with Zilber has blossomed over the last decade, focusing mainly on their love for New York City’s hard swinging jazz tradition. Though both originally hail from the West Coast, Clark from the Bay Area and Zilber from Vancouver, Canada, the musicians found their musical home with the driving sounds of New York hard bop via groups like those of Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

The musicians are separated by a continent, as Zilber lives in Los Angeles and Clark in New York City. But when they get together, they make their reunions count. The two recorded their first album, Mike Drop (Sunnyside, 2021), after their quartet’s first West Coast tour in 2018.

In the Fall of 2022, Clark and Zilber performed a very successful concert of new material at the Monterey Jazz Festival, where they were joined by up-and-coming New York bassist Alexander Claffy. Shortly thereafter, Zilber headed to New York City, where he and Clark rehearsed and recorded Zilber’s fresh, new arrangements.

Recording Standard Deviation with a New York band was important to Zilber and Clark, as they wanted musicians who understood that distinctive approach, namely, to remain loose, swing hard, and be in the moment. For the recording, the duo brought in the aforementioned Claffy along with stalwart pianist Jon Davis, a seasoned veteran of the New York scene who had already played some of the material with Zilber and Clark.

A fair portion of the material Zilber and Clark have performed together have been standards. For their Monterey appearance and new recording, Zilber and Clark wanted to feature Zilber’s arrangements that present a fresh spin on familiar material, reimagining the original songs. For that, Zilber used melodies from well-known tunes while completely overhauling the song structures, from changes in harmonies, meters, form, and feel. These changes make the songs exciting and challenging vehicles for the quartet and listeners alike.

The recording of Standard Deviation was made on October 13, 2022, at the Raw Recordings Studio in Paterson, New Jersey.

The program begins with Sam Rivers’ “Beatrice,” probably the most straight ahead reimagining but with a different harmony over the mid-1960s flavored swing. The only original composition on the album is Zilber’s “Blues for Chambers,” a hybrid shuffle tune with a twist that is dedicated to the recently departed bassist, Jeff Chambers. Hoagy Carmichael’s beautiful ballad “I Get Along Without You” gets a loose adaptation for a modern, Brazilian feel.

John Coltrane’s “Cousin Mary” is played over an uptempo swing with fresh harmonies and a changing figure to the tricky melody that keeps the players on their toes, while Ornette Coleman’s “Turnaround” is transformed into a slow Coltrane inspired blues in ¾ time with a new harmonic map. Bronislaw Caper’s “Green Dolphin Street” gets “Redolphined” as it goes a number of different places harmonically and hints at Coltrane harmonic changes in the tune’s bridge.

Ray Noble’s classic ballad, “The Very Thought of You,” is a recent favorite for reinvention by Zilber with an arrangement that seems to play itself. The band’s take also highlights tremendous solo features from Davis and Claffy. The group then reinterprets Leonard Cohen’s beloved “Hallelujah” as a fun and funky groover with interesting harmonies and a Stax R&B flavored backbeat, ending with a fervent outro from Clark and Zilber. The program concludes with the bookending “Footprints” by Wayne Shorter. The quartet’s version adapts the piece to 4/4 time with an implied ¾ feel and new harmonies. All the while, Clark jams on his unique blend of swing, Latin, and funk that he introduced to the world as a member of Herbie Hancock’s bands.

For jazz musicians, sometimes the best way to express something new is by reimagining something old. Mike Clark and Michael Zilber take pieces with recognizable themes and uniquely reimagine them on Standard Deviations. The results provide their quartet with fantastic pieces to highlight the group’s commitment to listening, interplay, and, most important, swing.