CD Review: “Live at Maureen’s Jazz Center” by Peter Furlan Project

Congers saxophonist and composer Peter Furlan has directly soaked up the greatness of musical giants, studying under Jackie McLean; working with such legends as Dizzy Gillespie, Eddie Henderson, Frank Foster, and Don Alias; and blowing his horn with pop and soul acts like the Temptations, 10,000 Maniacs, and the Four Tops. Live at Maureen’s Jazz Cellar, taped in 2025 at the titular Nyack venue, has the tenor and soprano player leading a tight nonet that includes his fellow Hudson Valley heavy hitters baritone saxist/clarinetist Brad Hubbard and alto man Andrew Beals as well as Furlan’s bandmates in the Weather Report/Headhunters repertoire band Mr. Gone: keyboardist Neil “Nail” Alexander, drummer Nadav Snir-Zelniker, and bassist Charlie Dougherty. The Frank Zappa-influenced “Return to the Be-Bop Tango,” a surprise-laden, solo-spiked piece, displays the writer’s skill of custom composing for his collaborators, while the percolating “Blues Squared” and the softly meandering “Twisted River”—the latter inspired by author John Irving, says Furlan—provide further testament to the colorful craft of the maestro and his superlative sidemen.