Jimmy Farace’s ‘Big Shoulders, Big Sounds’ Out Now
A raw, high-wire baritone sax trio record with Clark Sommers and Dana Hall
Big Sound? Jimmy Farace’s got plenty of that. He exploits every inch of the baritone saxophone’s range with power and conviction – the throaty octave at the apex of his “Just Us Blues” improvisation to the cellar-shaking base of the kaleidoscopic cadenza on “Chelsea Bridge.”
Big Shoulders? That phrase, of course, plays off Carl Sandburg’s immutable description of Chicago’s burly swagger. In Farace’s view, it conjures the giants on whose shoulders he stands, and specifically those paladins of the big horn whose music has shaped his own.
Big Shoulders, Big Sounds is a declaration of intent. Following his 2025 debut Hours Fly, Flowers Die (named “Best Jazz Albums of 2025” by All About Jazz, and “Top 100 Jazz Albums of 2025” by the esteemed Bill Milkowski), Jimmy Farace strips things down to a piano-less trio and steps into the full, unforgiving light: just baritone saxophone, bass, and drums. Joined by two of Chicago’s most trusted musicians – Clark Sommers and Dana Hall – Farace makes a record about risk, lineage, and the simple thrill of seeing how much music three artists can make together.
The title nods to Chicago’s famous “big shoulders,” but also to the giants of the baritone saxophone whose work made this music possible. You can hear the lyric clarity of Gerry Mulligan, the deep soul and edge of Charles Davis, and the broader tradition that stretches from Billy Strayhorn to Sammy Fain. At the same time, this is very much a personal statement. Farace’s original compositions – “Cloud Splitter,” “Prophetic Dreams,” “DST,” “Decorah’s Dance,” and “Three Headed Dragon” – are built around emotional spaces of restlessness, momentum, annoyance, joy, and the feeling that something is always just about to change.
Without a chordal instrument, the trio works in open air. Sommers and Hall, longtime musical partners, create a flexible, breathing environment that lets Farace move freely between weight and lightness, melody and momentum. The playing is big, but never crowded; virtuosic, but always pointed toward melodic storytelling.
The standards here – “Chelsea Bridge” and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” along with Charles Davis’s “Just Us Blues” – aren’t reinventions so much as gestures of gratitude. They ground the album in history while the originals point forward, especially in how the baritone saxophone can function as a modern lead voice.
If Farace’s first album proved he was a composer with a wide emotional lens, Big Shoulders, Big Sounds shows something else: a player ready to stand in the center of the music and see how far he can take it.
Keep your ears on Farace. By joining his billowing musicianship to that of Sommers and Hall, he’s produced a superb addition to the trio heritage with Big Shoulders, Big Sounds; it soars with big strokes and ripples with in-the-moment delights, and it augurs well for whatever comes next.
Fans of music, art, and the humanities, should rejoice that there are artists in the world such as Jimmy Farace, creating elevated listening experiences with albums that take you on an emotional journey. Creating music with depth and meaning which has the potential to enrich your soul, and perhaps make you feel important things like gratitude and inspiration. It’s also equally rewarding and highly enjoyable to forget all that and just lose yourself in the joy of this music!