May 7-13

Getting His Priorities Straight: Tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz gave up studying for performing.

Music's Call

Anton Schwartz follows his muse

The title of tenor saxophonist Anton Schwartz's debut CD, When Music Calls, neatly captures his vocational path. A Harvard graduate, Schwartz had completed all the course work in an artificial-intelligence Ph.D. program at Stanford when he decided to forgo the degree and concentrate full time on music. With his big, warm tone and compelling sense of swing, Schwartz combines the lush romanticism of tenor titan Ben Webster with the brawny soul of Stanley Turrentine. His lithe rhythmic sensibility was shaped by his high school association with the brilliant but underappreciated tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh, to whom Schwartz dedicated When Music Calls.

"He had me singing the songs I was learning, playing them on piano, learning the lyrics," Schwartz says, from his home in Daly City. "I learned solos by ear, then played them on the sax, starting with Charlie Christian and Lester Young." Celebrating the release of his CD (on his own AntonJazz label), Schwartz has lined up a working quartet that features bassist John Shifflett and drummer Jason Lewis, both based in the South Bay, and pianist Paul Nagel. "When we get up there at a gig, we're always surprising ourselves," Schwartz says. "The tunes take a different direction every time."

Club Ibex, 55 S. Market St., San Jose; Thursday at 8pm; $5; 408/971-4239. (Andrew Gilbert)

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