Dennis Lambert Quartet
Dennis Lambert Quartet
July 11, 2026
The Moment Jazz Club
Dennis Lambert - piano
酒井麻生代 Makiyo Sakai - flute
Brent Nussey - bass
加納樹麻Juasa Kanoh – drums
The Dennis Lambert Quartet started out with a Lambert original, entitled “Joy.” But from the opening note of that song, the quartet stayed in that joyful vibe for the rest of the show, with bright and pleasing melodies riding over complex harmonies. The first song’s take-out, like the endings for all the evening’s songs, was loose and thrilling. Lambert shifts lines and focuses on turning them around, like a magic trick. You can’t quite follow it, but you know it’s amazing.
From the first song on, Nussey on bass kept the band driving forward, while still embellishing every set of changes. Sakai amped up the melodic lines with a powerful flute, and Kanoh on drums let loose with fully felt rhythms.
“Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back” had a great opening bass. Kanoh opened up toward the end while Sakai wove a nimble flute around the bass line. Lambert was content to hand over time (as all great leaders do), for the others to solo. The third original, “Once the Sky Opened,” changed the vibe from muscular to delicate and spacious. Written only a week before the show, it spurred a great interplay among the instruments and fascinating solos on the symphonic flow of sections. It sounded like they’d been playing it for years.
“Amistad” (“friendship” in Spanish) sounded like the title. Each melody line built on the preceding one, pushing higher and higher. The solos really opened up on this number, with Lambert and Sakai reeling off long, fluid lines over the bass and drums. Cedar Walton’s “Firm Roots,” an upbeat tune, served as the perfect closer to the first set. Lambert’s full-on style of playing, with both hands working in and around the chord changes, shows his own firm roots.
The second set opened with a Latin arrangement of “How Deep is the Ocean.” The arrangement fit perfectly, with the clave pushing the song into nimble, even funky, rhythmic territory. The Latin rhythm inspired great solos from everyone. Sakai was obviously in her element with the Latin, as was Nussey. Kanoh kept it all flowing together.
“Jake’s Hands,” dedicated to Lambert’s son who has (no surprise with a pianist father) big hands (for a baby, as Lambert explained). The tune had an ascending melody as lovely as a baby. The Jaki Byard number “Chandra” was steeped in blues. Sakai on flute played soulfully and strongly. Nussey really dug deep on bass. And the song ended with everyone trading lines with Kanoh in brilliant bursts of musical glee.
“The Thought of Losing You,” another original from Lambert, was perhaps the loveliest tune of the evening. Delicate opening notes, just a few at a time, flowed like a waterway into the melody on Sakai’s flute. It was a wistful, even sad, melody that set the other mostly upbeat numbers into place. The final, improvised take-out of Lambert and Sakai trading melody lines was the melodic highlight of the evening.
The rhythmic highlight was the final song, “After You’ve Gone,” a standard tightly arranged and neatly played. A nice piano and drum intro set the bar high, and everyone rose to leap up to it. The full house at The Moment wouldn’t let the quartet leave without an encore, though. “All the Things You Are” let the band enjoy themselves one more time by swinging through the well-known standard. A full-on evening of superbly played jazz doesn’t get any better.
