A pleasant and inoffensive hard bop record, Keith Oxman’s Home shows the saxophonist in fine form. But with a 70 minute plus run time, it’s also a record that overstays its welcome. It’s a good record where a little pruning and spacing out would have pushed it to a higher level.
Oxman’s a player with a resume going back decades: his first record came out about 30 years ago on Capri and in recent years he’s worked with David Liebman and keyboardist Jeff Jenkins. For Home he’s using a quintet of guitarist Clint Dadian, trumpeter Derek Banach, bassist Bill McCrossen and drummer Todd Reid. It’s a nicely balanced group: Banach’s trumpet is a nice partner to Oxman’s sax, sometimes working in tandem and sometimes playing counterpoint, while…