A rare and joyous — and safe — mid-pandemic concert encounter

Part of a distinguished line of live albums (e.g., Keith Jarrett, Phil Woods) from the historic jazz venue in Pennsylvania’s rural Poconos region

Halloween, like all holidays, was a difficult thing to celebrate during the pandemic year of 2020, but alto saxophonist Jim Snidero (“a master musician,” Downbeat; “a genuinely significant figure in jazz composition,” Penguin Guide to Jazz) found himself in a unique situation: he was able to assemble a quartet for a feasible, safe, limited-audience gig at Pennsylvania’s famed Deer Head Inn. At a time of privation and isolation for most performers of all stripes, Snidero and his colleagues relished the chance to commune with listeners, and one another, on the bandstand again at long last. Live at the Deer Head Inn is the result, and as Snidero remarks in Dan Bilawsky’s liner notes, “It just felt like the perfect opportunity to cut through the fog of this damn pandemic and mark this moment in time.”

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