A Blue Time: Joe Syrian’s Motor City Jazz Octet reinvent the songbook, and nail “Black Magic Woman”

There’s a specific kind of confidence required to take songs everyone already knows and make them sound like nobody has ever heard them before. It’s the difference between a covers record and an act of genuine reinterpretation. On A Blue Time, drummer and bandleader Joe Syrian and his eight-piece Motor City Jazz Octet give us one of the most enjoyable and captivating jazz albums of the year, a record that absolutely earns a place among the essentials.

Joe Syrian has built his reputation on a “little big band” concept that treats genre boundaries as invitations rather than walls, and A Blue Time, the follow-up to 2024’s Secret Message, is the clearest statement yet of that philosophy. His own description of the project, taking rock songs and making them jazzy, and jazz songs and giving them a rock edge, sounds simple on paper. In the hands of this particular octet, it’s something closer to alchemy.

Part of what makes A Blue Time work so well is the sheer depth of the personnel Syrian has assembled: pianist Adam Birnbaum, guitarist Paul Bollenback, trombonist and producer Doug Beavers, saxophonists Carl Maraghi, Tim Ries and Dave Riekenberg, and trumpeter Nick Marchionne, with bass duties splitting between Lorin Cohen and Boris Kozlov. Add guest vocalist Lucy Yeghiazaryan and percussionist Luisito Quintero, and you have a band deep enough to make ten wildly different songs feel like a single, coherent artistic statement rather than a scattered playlist. The arrangements also give each track its own distinct personality while never losing the octet’s collective identity.

Syrian’s own description of his approach to leadership, thinking with ten brains rather than one, listening more than dictating, is audible in how generously the album is arranged. Nobody here is fighting for space. Duke Jordan’s “Jordu” opens the record with real big-band muscle, brass interplay that snaps with precision, and a swing feel that’s simultaneously vintage and completely alive in the present. Jobim’s “Agua de Beber” glides between bossa lightness and moments of real rhythmic push, and it’s an early signal of just how fluidly this band moves between idioms without ever sounding like they’re forcing a fit.

But the track that deserves special attention, and the one that will draw the most listeners in, is the octet’s take on “Black Magic Woman”. This is a song with a genuinely fascinating history: written by Peter Green and first released as a Fleetwood Mac single in 1968, it then became a cultural phenomenon two years later, when Carlos Santana’s version, sung by Gregg Rolie, turned it into the opening single from Abraxas and rode it into the US and Canadian top five. Santana’s recording is the one most listeners think of when they hear the title, and covering it means inviting an immediate, unavoidable comparison.

Syrian’s octet doesn’t flinch from that challenge, it leans straight into it, and wins. Rather than chasing Santana’s rock-Latin blueprint directly, the superb arrangement (credited to Brian Stark) slows the tune into a smouldering, patient Latin groove, giving Luisito Quintero’s percussion real room to simmer underneath the horns. And then there’s Paul Bollenback’s guitar solo, which is the track’s genuine masterstroke: fiery, unmistakably in conversation with Santana’s own legacy on the tune without ever descending into imitation. It’s the kind of performance that respects a classic while still making a clear case for its own reason to exist. If any single track on A Blue Time deserves to travel, to get pulled onto playlists, played on the radio, passed between friends, it’s this one. Given how the song made its own unlikely journey from a Fleetwood Mac deep cut to a chart-topping Santana anthem, there’s a real, delicious possibility that this version could carve out its own second life too.

The record doesn’t lean on that one track to carry it, either. “Norwegian Wood” is a genuine highlight, unfolding from hushed atmosphere into a sly, unexpected swing that completely reframes the Beatles original. Lucy Yeghiazaryan’s guest turn on “Teach Me Tonight” is warm and unhurried, the kind of vocal performance that trusts the song rather than oversinging it. “Charade” brings real cinematic sweep, anchored by Lorin Cohen’s expressive bass work, while “Blue Bossa” and the title track “A Blue Time” close things out with the kind of relaxed, deeply grooved swagger that only a band this comfortable with each other can pull off.

A Blue Time is a masterclass in reinterpretation, a record that honours jazz tradition, rock history and the Great American Songbook all at once, without ever feeling like a tribute act to any of them. Joe Syrian’s octet plays with the kind of loose, joyful chemistry that can’t be faked, and their “Black Magic Woman” alone is worth the price of admission: a genuinely fresh take on a song that has already proven, once before, that it can find a whole new audience through reinvention. This is a rich, endlessly listenable album from a band operating at the very top of its game. A must!

Frankie Pfeiffer
Editor in chief – PARIS-MOVE

PARIS-MOVE, August 24th, 2026

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Tracklisting:

Jordu 05:04

Agua de Beber 05:21

Teach Me Tonight (feat. Lucy Yeghiazaryan) 04:08

Norwegian Wood 05:26

Black Magic Woman (feat. Paul Bollenback) 05:14

Charade 05:16

Blue Bossa 06:38

Nature Boy 05:53

Sway 05:08

A Blue Time 04:44

Musicians:
Joe Syrian – drums, leader
Adam Birnbaum – piano
Paul Bollenback – acoustic and electric guitars, banjo (4)
Lorin Cohen – acoustic and electric bass (1, 5, 7, 8, 10)
Boris Kozlov – acoustic and electric bass (2-4, 6, 9)
Carl Maraghi – alto and baritone saxophones, clarinet (6, 10)
Tim Ries – tenor saxophone (8, 10)
Dave Riekenberg – tenor saxophone (1-7, 9) bass clarinet (6)
Nick Marchione – trumpet, flugelhorn
Doug Beavers – trombone

Special Guests:
Lucy Yeghiazaryan – lead vocal (3)
Luisito Quintero – percussion (5)

Recorded May 16-19, 2023, at Trading 8s Studios, NJ, USA, engineered by Chris Sullit (Tracks 1, 5, 7, 8 & 10)
Recorded October 20-22, 2025, at Studio Mozart, NJ, USA, engineered by Kostadin Kamcev (Tracks 2, 3, 4, 6, 9)
Mixed and mastered March 2026 by David Darlington at Bass Hit Recording, NYC
Vinyl mastered March 2026 by Doug Beavers at Circle 9 Studio, Jersey City NJ
Cover photography by Stein Egil Liland
Additional landscape photography by Loren Fisher
Session photography by Doug Beavers
Liner Notes by Michael Ambrosino
Graphic design by Chad McCullough
Produced by Doug Beavers
Executive Producer: Joseph Syrian