Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet follows 2025’s jazz chart-topping Secret Message with A Blue Time, out April 24, 2026 via Circle 9 Records
Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet releases ‘A Blue Time’ April 24, 2026 on Circle 9 Records
Joe Syrian Motor City Jazz Octet follows 2025’s jazz chart-topping Secret Message
with A Blue Time, out April 24, 2026 via Circle 9 Records
The veteran drummer’s “little big band” reworks standards, Latin repertoire, and songs from outside the jazz canon, jazzing up rock tunes and making jazz tunes rock
Drummer and bandleader Joe Syrian returns with his Motor City Jazz Octet on A Blue Time, out April 24 via Circle 9 Records — a follow-up to 2025’s Secret Message. The album includes Duke Jordan’s “Jordu,” Tadd Dameron’s “A Blue Time,” Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “Agua de Beber,” Kenny Dorham’s “Blue Bossa,” the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” and Peter Green’s “Black Magic Woman.” As Syrian puts it, “we deviated a lot, taking some rock tunes and making them jazzy, and taking some jazz tunes and making them a little rockier.”
“I like to think with 10 brains, not one,” Syrian says. “I don’t dominate, I listen and encourage. It’s really a give and take.” The lineup — pianist Adam Birnbaum, guitarist Paul Bollenback, trombonist Doug Beavers, alto and baritone saxophonist Carl Maraghi, tenor saxophonists Tim Ries and Dave Riekenberg, who also plays bass clarinet, and trumpeter and flugelhornist Nick Marchione — includes bass duties split between Lorin Cohen and Boris Kozlov, with appearances from vocalist Lucy Yeghiazaryan and percussionist Luisito Quintero. Beavers produced the album, with arrangements by Beavers, Birnbaum, John Fedchock, Brian Stark, Rich DeRosa, and David O’Rourke.
“Every guy in this band could be the leader,” Syrian says. “Being a leader, you just bring the pencils to the rehearsal or something. These guys lead themselves.” The solos carry the music. “The solos, they’re more important than anything else. Jazz is built around improv, and these guys just take it to the next level.”
Recorded across two sessions — May 16–19, 2023 at Trading 8s Studios in New Jersey and October 20–22, 2025 at Studio Mozart — A Blue Time draws from both periods, combining selections carried over from the first session with material added during the second. Syrian shaped the program for contrast. “We had a lot of tunes, you don’t want 10 bossas or something,” he says. “So we just kind of balanced it.” “Besides the music, we had a lot of fun, we ate some nice meals together, spent a lot of time, just developed some deeper friendship.”
The album opens with “Jordu,” which Syrian describes as “in a very, very standard way, just kind of establishing ourselves as jazz players.” Jobim’s “Agua de Beber,” usually heard as a bossa nova, is recast with a different feel. “We made it a rock tune, with a general rock beat.” “Teach Me Tonight” features Lucy Yeghiazaryan, who, Syrian says, “just walks in and belts it out, tremendous spunk and confidence.”
Adam Birnbaum’s arrangement of “Norwegian Wood” keeps the original 3/4 structure while reshaping its contours. “We took a rock tune and made it a jazz tune, still in three-four time, but a much different feel,” Syrian says. “A lot of the Beatles tunes, their framework lets you go in a lot of different directions.”
“Black Magic Woman” comes from a chart Syrian had been hanging onto for decades. “I had this thing for 20 years,” he says. “We were just about done, and we pulled it out.” The arrangement, by Brian Stark, centers on Paul Bollenback’s electric guitar. “I would really like to see people’s faces when that starts, when the first guitar stroke comes in.”
On “Charade,” arranged by Rich DeRosa, the setup changes. “He wrote a tom-tom background drum part, so I had a whole lot of tom-toms I don’t usually play,” Syrian says. The result is, in his words, “very pretty, very beautiful.” Dorham’s “Blue Bossa” stays close to its lineage. “It’s more of a samba, which is how it’s usually played.”
Fedchock’s arrangement of “Nature Boy” introduces what Syrian describes as “kind of an Afro-Cuban drum rhythm,” lifting the tune from its usual ballad setting. “Sway” features a trombone solo from Beavers. “A lot of the Latin stuff is the same, only different,” Syrian says. “The rhythms kind of blur.”
Closing track “A Blue Time,” arranged by David O’Rourke, brings it back to straight-ahead playing. “It just kind of takes us home to jazz, to easy swinging playing,” Syrian says.
For Syrian, it comes down to the people. “These are the best musicians, they really play great,” he says. “There’s none better. There’s others, but not anyone better. These guys are right up there, just first-rate music, good writing, good playing, and good people.”
Tracklist
1 Jordu - Duke Jordan, arr. John Fedchock 05:09
2 Agua de Beber - Antonio Carlos Jobim, arr. Brian Stark 05:21
3 Teach Me Tonight (feat. Lucy Yeghiazaryan) - Gene de Paul, arr. Doug Beavers 04:08
4 Norwegian Wood - Lennon-McCartney, arr. Adam Birnbaum 05:26
5 Black Magic Woman (feat. Paul Bollenback) - Peter Green, arr. Brian Stark 05:15
6 Charade - Henry Mancini, arr. Rich DeRosa 05:17
7 Blue Bossa - Kenny Dorham, arr. Adam Birnbaum 05:35
8 Nature Boy - Eden Ahbez, arr. John Fedchock 05:09
9 Sway - Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, L. Demetrio & N. Gimbel, arr. Rich DeRosa 04:59
10 A Blue Time - Tadd Dameron, arr. David O’Rourke 04:44
