Joe Alterman: Brisket for Breakfast

Joe Alterman is a delightful jazz pianist who swings stronger than Joe Louis, with punch and assurance. The way he double times the beautiful ballad That’s All, trickles the blues into the mix, and builds the dynamics on his piano in absolutely genius ways. — Making a Scene

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, pianist Joe Alterman wasn’t raised with the sounds of jazz in his ears. Though he’d quickly come to love the full panoply of jazz styles and become an acclaimed torchbearer for the music’s tradition, Alterman’s first musical passions were bluegrass and the blues.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that when he did start exploring the jazz pantheon, it wasn’t bebop modernists like Bill Evans that lured him in – it was blues-rooted greats like Oscar Peterson, Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann, or Houston Person.

The connection that Alterman felt with those greats as a listener has, in many cases, long since been surpassed by the connections that he’s made with his heroes as a collaborator.

Following on the heels of 2023’s rollicking and emotional Big Mo & Little Joe, documenting his close friendship and onstage partnership with the late McCann, comes Brisket for Breakfast, a joyous live recording pairing Alterman and his Atlanta-based trio with Person’s burly embrace of a tenor sound.

Come get to know bluesy, swinging jazz - that's the Atlanta way!