Big Shoulders, Big Sounds doesn’t arrive quietly — it arrives like a statement. A clear declaration of intent from Jimmy Farace, following his 2025 debut Hours Fly, Flowers Die, a release that earned major recognition as one of the best jazz albums of the year, including a “Best Jazz Albums of 2025” nod from All About Jazz and a place in Bill Milkowski’s “Top 100 Jazz Albums of 2025.” Where that first record introduced Farace as a composer with a wide emotional reach, this new chapter reveals something even more exposed: a bandleader willing to strip everything back and step into the full, unforgiving light.
This time, Farace chooses the boldest kind of simplicity — a piano-less trio built on pure conversation: baritone saxophone, bass, and drums. No harmonic safety net. No chordal cushion. Just space, risk, and the raw thrill of seeing how much music three artists can make together when every note has to count. Joined by two of Chicago’s most trusted and deeply musical voices — bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall — Farace crafts a record that feels rooted in lineage while still moving forward with urgency and personal clarity.
The album title nods, of course, to Chicago’s famous “big shoulders.” It also carries a deeper resonance — a salute to the giants of the baritone saxophone whose work made this kind of record possible. You can hear echoes of Gerry Mulligan’s lyrical clarity, the deep soul and edge of Charles Davis, and a broader tradition that stretches back through the songbook — from Billy Strayhorn to Sammy Fain. Yet Big Shoulders, Big Sounds never feels like an exercise in nostalgia. It’s not about imitation. It’s about inheritance — and what you do with it once it’s in your hands.
Farace’s original compositions are the heart of the album, and they move like emotional weather systems. Tracks such as “Cloud Splitter,” “Prophetic Dreams,” “DST,” “Decorah’s Dance,” and “Three Headed Dragon” are built around inner states — restlessness, momentum, irritation, joy — and that unmistakable feeling that something is always just about to change. In the open air of a chordless trio, those emotions don’t get softened. They sharpen. They breathe. They become more immediate.
That openness is where Sommers and Hall shine. Longtime musical partners, they create a flexible, responsive environment that feels alive — a foundation that can turn on a dime, expand into silence, or lock into a groove with quiet authority. Their playing gives Farace the freedom to move between weight and lightness, melody and propulsion, without ever overcrowding the sound. The result is big music that never feels heavy, virtuosic playing that never loses sight of storytelling.
The standards included — “Chelsea Bridge” and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” alongside Charles Davis’s “Just Us Blues” — don’t come across as reinventions so much as gestures of gratitude. They ground the album in history, reminding the listener that jazz is a continuum: a language passed down, reshaped, and spoken anew. Against that backdrop, Farace’s originals point forward, especially in the way they frame the baritone saxophone not as a supporting colour, but as a modern lead voice capable of carrying nuance, tenderness, and force in equal measure.
If Hours Fly, Flowers Die proved Jimmy Farace was a composer with range and emotional depth, Big Shoulders, Big Sounds confirms something else entirely: this is a player ready to stand at the centre of the music — and brave enough to find out just how far he can take it.
For further information on the artist, please visit the following links:
.
Image by Faith Decker, courtesy of Red Kat Promotions
About Author
