KU alumnus releases sophomore jazz album

Building on the momentum of his chart-topping first album, “Compton’s Finest,” jazz drummer Brandon Sanders follows that 2023 debut with “The Tables Will Turn.” The nine-song recording, released Oct. 4 by Savant Records, follows a similar format as the first, blending solid readings of standards (Duke Ellington’s “Prelude to a Kiss,” John Coltrane’s “Aisha” and Charlie Parker’s “Moose the Mooche”), original compositions (“Miss Ernestine,” “Central and El Segundo” and “The Tables Will Turn”), and a jazz interpretation of a pop hit (Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”). Saxophonist Chris Lewis, vibraphonist Warren Wolf and pianist Keith Brown are back, too, joined this time by bassist David Wong and vocalist Christie Dashiell.

Sanders, c’94, g’98, who was 25 when he took up the drums and 52 when he released his first album (“Beat of a Different Drum,” issue No. 4, 2023), initially encountered skepticism from musicians who told him he was starting too late. Seeing “Compton’s Finest” ascend to No. 1 on JazzWeek’s Top 50 chart, “was a lesson in believing in yourself,” he says. That same resilient positivity is encoded in the new album’s title song, which he introduced during a two-night appearance at KU’s Lied Center in September as “a James Brown feel” with gospel overtones.

“‘The Tables Will Turn’ is saying that no matter what you go through in life, if you hold fast to what you believe in, the tables will turn,” Sanders says. “I stuck with it, and the tables did turn.”

On Oct. 21 the album was JazzWeek’s biggest mover and highest debut, at No. 46, and its first single—”Miss Ernestine,” a bluesy tribute to Sanders’ grandmother, who at one time ran the Kansas City jazz club Casablanca—piled up 25,000 streams in five days. By Nov. 25, “The Tables Will Turn” hit No. 1 on the JazzWeek Jazz Chart.