Charles Owens Trio

The first thing you notice about Charles Owens is the tone. The American tenor saxophonist is a player of irresistible warmth. Like the early John Coltrane he is firm and direct, but generous and sincere with it. On listening to him you feel you know him. He invites the comparison on two tunes associated with the master, sashaying elegantly on Angelica and musing mysteriously on Central Park West. Both are utterly charming.
Like Sonny Rollins, Owens has a sound big enough to do without a piano’s chordal cushion. This group, which he here celebrates leading for a decade, has a lean two-man rhythm section. On electric bass guitar, Andrew Randazzo is frank and resonant, especially when he beetles away behind Owens’s spidery solo