The jazz world lost some fine drummers in the last year. Roy Haynes was still playing in his 90s before he passed in November of 2024, and Jack DeJohnette left a giant hole in the music when he died this past October. Al Foster will also be sorely missed. Though he died in May of 2025, Live at Smoke was recorded only four months earlier, during his annual birthday engagement at the New York City club.
Of these three drummers, Foster may have been the late bloomer, but no one played the drums with more melodic grace. Foster was famed for being a groove-master in Miles Davis‘ late bands and with other jazz giants from the 1960s to the (almost) present, but he played with more singing joy than any of his peers.
“Amsterdam Blues”, by the session’s saxophonist, Chris Potter, features a truly singing Foster drum solo on top of Joe Martin’s bass line. He moves across his tuned toms almost like he is playing a vibraphone. It is simple and elegant, and only after hearing it did I realize that he had been playing with equal melodic content throughout the song’s theme (essentially extending the “melody” into short drum breaks) and during the improvisations by Potter and pianist Brad Mehldau.
No wonder, then, that some of the most memorable improvisers of the modern jazz era chose Al Foster as a collaborator. Miles Davis, of course, was famous for distilling melody in his art, even in his acid-laced 1970s bands (where Foster replaced DeJohnette in the drum chair) and patchy 1980s bands (which started with Foster as the only holdover from the 1970s member). I have always considered Foster (as well as bassist Ron Carter) a co-leader of one of the greatest recordings of the 1980s, Joe Henderson’s The State of Tenor, Volumes 1 & 2 (Blue Note), which put the great saxophonist in a trio setting at the Village Vanguard, looking deeply into a set of not-played-to-death standards.
In Charlie Parker‘s “Cheryl”, Foster uses his cymbals and snare accents to contour the leader’s solo with orchestration, and Duke Ellington’s “Happy Reunion” is itself a Ph.D in how to swing with brushes. It is a masterpiece, in no small part because Foster was not “just a drummer” but a complete musician.
Live at Smoke understandably puts his drum sound more out front, and the sonic detail simply deepens Foster’s art. This is an all-star band, of course. More casual jazz fans may only know Mehldau, a new century jazz “star” who has earned his success and reputation. His pairing with Foster is exceptional. The pianist’s theme “Unrequited” is a bright, Latin-tinged song that asks Al Foster to percolate beneath the head arrangement and invites a conversation between drums and piano during Mehldau’s improvisation.
They sound marvelous together; Mehldau plays with a rhythmic panache that the leader matches in unusual ways — tapping on the bell and hardware of his hi-hat and getting beautiful alto-range melodies from the toms. Once Potter enters, the conversation gets brighter and louder, as befits the tenor’s insistence.
Hearing the band take on “Pent-Up House” is a reminder that Al Foster had strong relationships not only with Joe Henderson and Chris Potter but also with their brilliant ancestor, Sonny Rollins. The tune’s debut was on a 1956 date recorded by Rudy Van Gelder with Rollins, Max Roach, and Clifford Brown — the quintet usually led by Roach and Brown. Roach, of course, was the first bebop drummer to demonstrate how the modern style could be fully melodic on the drum kit. This version is another high-wire act for its first three-quarters, and then the band decelerates to set up Al Foster’s feature moment. Mehldau uses the melody’s toggling part to feed Foster a motif, which the drummer then develops across his kit with Fred Astaire-like élan.
There are several standards on Live at Smoke, and they are among the highlights. “Old Folks” is taken as a mid-tempo, almost-ballad, with the whole band feeling the slinky backbeat and leaning into the opportunity to play some dirty blue notes suggested by the harmony. When Potter follows the piano solo, Foster sharpens his attack, lifting the band to a more exciting level. “Everything Happens to Me” is unrushed. Still, when Foster switches from brushes to sticks in accompanying Potter’s solo, both men are ready to shift into a thrilling doubletime, which bassist Joe Martin is only too happy to match.
“E.S.P.” is, of course, the Wayne Shorter song that gave the 1965 Miles Davis album its name. Foster and crew drive it like a Ferrari, shifting in and out of 4/4 swing at will. This is the performance where Chris Potter plays with the most imagination and flair. His extended solo is consistently inventive, particularly in a moment where Foster pushes him with a mid-solo press roll on a tom, and he answers by repeating a figure, essentially creating his own saxophonic drum roll. The audience at Smoke, caught on this excellent recording, thrums in response.
As much as I like this recording, it is occasionally overripe with dazzle. Potter and Mehldau are, of course, bandleaders, and their distinctive vocabularies and strengths as soloists sometimes battle for dominance. What these kinds of creative powers produce together, however, is also thrilling. For example, on Al Foster’s waltz, “Simone’s Dance”, the band create shifting, hypnotic movement. The opening cadenza by Potter is another nod to Mr. Rollins, perhaps, and by the middle of his solo, the rhythm section has slid over into a swinging 4/4, with Foster free to superimpose bits of “3” wherever he sees fit. Everything resets to waltz time for Mehldau’s solo, with Martin and Foster moving the tune into a different kind of four-on-the-floor swing. This kind of rhythmic play is everywhere on Live at Smoke.
It’s worth noting that Potter uses his soprano saxophone on the Joe Martin tune “Malida”, another song in a triple meter. This kind of groove and the use of soprano evokes The John Coltrane Quartet even more than Coltrane’s own “Satellite”, the song programmed just before this one on the album. “Malida” ends up being the longest track of the session, offering every musician the chance to unspool big hunks of melody. Martin sounds wonderful, as you would hope. After the theme is restated, the band play a long, repeated out-chorus, during which Potter and Mehldau articulate a set of minor chords, introducing a vibe that sounds blue.
Maybe that was the honest feeling as this group played an exciting birthday show for the 82-year-old but still masterful Foster. Did anyone know that he only had a few months left? I can’t hear any decay in his playing: exuberant, joy-rich, and fully interactive. Al Foster sounds like a miracle of melody, polyrhythm, and listening on this beautiful album.