May 2007

David Lackner
Chapter One
Dreambox Media

By Forrest Dylan Bryant

The premiere release from 20-year-old saxophonist David Lackner is a mixed bag. Lackner favors a carefully articulated sound, lining up solid, distinct notes like dominoes, popping on alto and showing just a touch of the blues on tenor. This approach leaves his quintet sounding stiff in the disc’s early tracks, but later on things loosen up in the express-train context of “Cherokee” and in custom-built originals such as the calculating “Belt of Asteroids.”