Abate to play ‘real jazz’ at cultural center

By Joe Burns / Contributing Writer
Posted Dec 14, 2017 at 6:00 AM

For hard-bopper Greg Abate, jazz is a journey filled with infinite possibilities. It has taken him across the world, and opened up seemingly endless avenues for self-expression.

For hard-bopper Greg Abate, jazz is a journey filled with infinite possibilities. It has taken him across the world, and opened up seemingly endless avenues for self-expression.

The Rhode Island-based sax player – who will present an evening of “Real Jazz in the Moment” Saturday at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod – shares that journey in his latest CD “Road to Forever.”

Abate recorded the album with the Tim Ray Trio. Ray will accompany Abate on piano at the cultural center show, along with trio member John Lockwood on acoustic bass. They’ll be joined by Gary Johnson on drums.

“Road to Forever,” Abate’s 17th album, is not simply a point in time captured in a studio session. It’s also, for Abate, both a reflective look back and an expression of what may lie ahead. The songs, he says, have a lot of “sentimental value.”

“All the tunes are symbolic of how I feel about how the road is never-ending and you go to forever somewhere,” Abate says. “I’m sort of making my own connection to the happiness I feel when I play with that belief in that ‘road to forever.’”

Several of the numbers were written for friends past and present, including “Farewell to Phil Woods,” a tribute to the late, great jazz sax player who recorded two albums with Abate.

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