Golden Moments by Charles Owens

Songs trigger memory. Saxophonist Charles Owens knows this about himself. He’s seen it countless times in the faces of live audiences. And his new album Golden Moments, out November 11, he digs deep into the meaning that certain songs carry for us — the emotions, the people, and the places they bring up — starting with himself and his own past.

Golden Moments invites us to rediscover key pieces of popular music from the twentieth century, and to do so through the lens of jazz. The Beatles, James Taylor, Supertramp, the Spinners — Owens and his quartet pick one iconic name after another, then give themselves over, playing with a passion and vulnerability second to none.

“This is me going back and exploring repertoire that meant a lot to me my whole life,” says the saxophonist. “People love these songs. And when I say people, I mean me too. Like, I literally grew up with them, and they have made an imprint on my psyche, and an imprint on my heart. So when I play them, it feels so natural, because it’s been in my being for my whole life. And they’ve had this huge effect on me since I was literally a little kid, like close to even being a toddler.”

You cannot fake the kind of connection Owens has with the songs on Golden Moments. “I was six or seven years old,” he starts, recalling his history with Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now,” “and I was upstairs cleaning. We would always do housework on Saturdays, and we would have every radio in the house on, same station, so we’d be running around the house listening to the same thing whatever room we were in.

“And I remember just hearing ‘If You Leave Me Now’ and breaking down and crying. This song has such a beautiful melody, and has such a feeling of longing, that even when I was a child, it really emotionally affected me.”

This is what Owens brings to Golden Moments. Daniel Clarke (piano), Andrew Randazzo (bass), and Brian Caputo (drums) are on the exact same wavelength. Together, they’re widening the umbrella of jazz, welcoming in new listeners by playing beloved songs with a lifetime’s worth of care.

“I’m definitely a proponent of what a lot of great musicians in this music have done before, which is to play songs that people are familiar with. ‘Oh what, they’re playing a Chicago tune in a jazz band, what’s going on?’ And have them be drawn into that. And then see that you can improvise and make it sound good and have it be really appealing, and win people over to this music.

“A lot of people have a certain idea of what jazz or what Black American music, improvisatory music is. They think it’s just like, swingin’ cat, daddy-o, this particular thing. And we’re trying to let people know — it’s not that. It can be anything. It can be any song as long as the song is good, and you start out with a strong melody. It’s really about trying to change the perception of what swing or what improvised music is about.”

Charles Owens is an internationally acclaimed master tenor saxophonist, pianist, composer, band leader, recording artist, and educator and has been performing, composing, and teaching for over 35 years. He has made 13 albums as a leader. He has devoted his life to pursuing excellence in music and bringing peace and happiness to his fellow humans with his music.

charlesowensmusic.com
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