Paul Kreibich “Thank You Elvin” Quartet at the Lighthouse

Sunday, September 8th, 2019, exceptional drummer, Paul Kreibich brought his impressive “Thank you Elvin” quartet back to the world famous Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach to continue celebrating their new CD release of tribute to icon and famous drummer Elvin Jones. Jones made many great playing memories and credits in the earlier Be-Bop jazz era.
The Lighthouse has been famous for a total of seventy years beginning back in 1949, making a place in Southern California for jazz fans seeing and hearing some of best performers in jazz world-wide over these many years.

Kreibich’s quartet is unique in that they had only two saxes, both tenors and the rhythm with Kreibich’s fine drumming and a newer, younger and excellent bass player, Will Lyle. The tenor saxes were Jeff Elwood and Doug Webb. The sound these four created was strong and dynamic. They opened the day with a sterling standard, “There Is No Greater Love.” Good foundation for soloing set up all the way around for all four of the quartet. The acoustics in the Lighthouse are very good. There weren’t too many persons earlier on, but they started coming in more during this first set.

There are ten tunes on the Kreibich Quartet CD. We stayed for two of the three sets and heard a good number of these selections plus a couple of good well-known standards. Listing some of these tunes were: “Cookie’s Calypso,” “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry,” Kreibich’s composition, “Sabai, Sabai,” “Triple Play,” “Fast Track,” “I Hear a Rhapsody,” “Naima,” “My One and Only Love,” and “Space Mistress.” In several of these tunes the saxophonists both Elwood and Webb stretched out immensely playing higher registers on their instruments. Everyone in the quartet did a lot of well-given solos. The bass solos from Will Lyle were excellent. This young player will go a long ways, it looks very sure. Kreibich’s solos always cook very well all of the time! The audience gave a lot of applause throughout the afternoon. Paul Kreibich’s “Thank You Elvin” CD is on BluJazz, BJ3465 and a pretty good listen as well.

Glenn A. Mitchell