From the liner notes by tenor saxophonist Zan Stewart for The Street Is Making Music: For this recording, I wanted to stay with the tenor saxophone-piano-bass-drums acoustic format, offering standards and originals. This format has grabbed me since I fell in love with Sonny Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus (Prestige) as a teenager. Joining me are three superlative musicians – pianist Keith Saunders, bassist Adam Gay, and drummer Ron Marabuto. They’re all top-tier San Francisco Bay Area artists and they embrace the melodically-rich mainstream-and-beyond vein, swinging hard with a vitality that gives the music life. That’s my goal, too. The lineup has a taste of the old as well as the new. The selections are all offered with a vigor and immediacy that, I feel, gives them a decidedly contemporary vibe. We open with “Daddy’s Blue Song,” an original samba that had its beginnings in a dream of mine. My mother was playing piano and my father – looking like the Michelin Man except powder blue instead of white – did the Bing Crosby-like vocal. Out of that came a tune that has proven fun to play, and that people like. Ron’s rim-shot accents are aces. “Love Letters” is a choice standard by Victor Young (music) and Edward Heyman (words). The goal here was just to swing a little. d. For Bud Powell’s “Webb City,” we go with a medium groove, as Sonny Stitt did on his superb 1972 Cobblestone date, Constellation. The line mixes bop hipness with plain funk. Can’t beat that. “Gals ’Round the ’Hood” is my homage to women everywhere. The melody was sparked by some very cool female friends from the North Berkeley, Ca. area, where I lived for a while. This minor-keyed ditty goes from Latin to swing. “Laird Baird” was the first Charlie Parker I recall hearing. It’s a very sweet theme on the 12-bar “round-the-clock” blues format. Keith and I play the line together – definitely a challenge. Dig Adam’s big-noted, fluid solo. The medley of “Mobes’ Symphony” and the Matt Dennis/Tom Adair evergreen, “Everything Happens to Me” is done unaccompanied, a format I find really intriguing. “Mobes’ Symphony” is based partly on sounds my beloved Boxer Mobes (that’s his image on the logo) makes when he’s in the car heading for a walk, and partly on the variety of amazingly agile moves he made when he was younger. “Everything Happens to Me” is a favorite ballad. The name for the title track comes from Marie-Alyse Brown, who was a pre-teen neighbor of mine when I lived in West Orange, N.J. and wrote for the Newark Star-Ledger. Her father, Dion, told me that sometimes when I was practicing, she’d say, “Daddy, the street is making music.” This inspired me to try and write something that was upbeat – and danceable. Hope you like it, Marie-Alyse. Thank you. I have been a fan of Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke’s “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” for ages. This is dedicated to those who have found happiness in their romantic lives. Cheers to you all. “Diverse” (a.k.a “Segment”) is one of Bird’s rare minor-keyed vehicles. It lends itself to blowing. Here, as elsewhere, Keith lays it down. “Zansky,” my theme song, was initially inspired by Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka,” which I paraphrase a bit here. A minor blues seemed an appropriate setting. We wrap things up with an alternate take of “Gals ’Round the ’Hood.” Again, the vibrant rhythm team shines, and the leader’s not too bad, either. Thanks for reading, maybe buying an album or a track. Be well, Zan