Sam Gendel - Satin Doll

The Guardian 80

Nonesuch
The avant-garde trailblazer pushes the boat out to glorious extremes with his near-unrecognisable covers of jazz standards

Sam Gendel plays like a man trying to erase his instrument. The Californian saxophonist – perhaps best-known for his thoughtful collaborations with Moses Sumney and bassist Sam Wilkes – has long been honing slippery improvisations, pitch-bending his harmonies and sliding over rhythms. His latest LP, Satin Doll, is his most fully formed yet and pushes this experimentation to its furthest extreme, his sax sounding like melting wax on his 13 cover versions of jazz standards.

Pitchfork 78

On his Nonesuch debut, the innovative saxophonist reinvents jazz standards with a psychedelic hip-hop touch.