RICH HALLEY TRIO

Mountains and Plains
Louie Records 035

MICHAEL BLAKE TRIO
Right Before Your Very Ears
Clean Feed CF 044CD

Two saxophonists from the Pacific Northwest – one of whom relocated to New York City years ago – disprove the old saw about “you can take a boy out of the country, but …”

Portland, Oregon-based soprano and tenor saxophonist Rich Halley, who is also a field biologist, brings a West Coast spaciousness to the nine originals that make up the appropriately titled MOUNTAINS AND PLAINS CD. Saxophonist Michael Blake, who grew up in Vancouver, B.C., yet relocated to Manhattan in 1987, offers up a program replete with Big Apple speed and toughness.

Both saxophonists are seconded by sympathetic associates. In Halley’s case, his long-stand trio is filled out by bassist Clyde Reed, who is also an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in a Vancouver, B.C. suburb, and Louie Records’ recording engineer and proprietor, drummer Dave Storrs. The reedist and drummer have performed together for over 30 years in many different contexts including one most generic for this date, Halley’s Outside Music Ensemble, which was formed in 1999 to perform creative music in interesting outdoor settings.

Meanwhile Blake’s partners for RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EARS are fellow members of the musician-run Jazz Composers Collective, a non-profit, organization dedicated to presenting the original works of composers. Bassist Ben Allison also has his own groups, Medicine Wheel and Peace Pipe, in which saxman also participates, while drummer Jeff Ballard has worked with both mainstreamers and downtowners.

Oddly – or is it appropriately – enough, both horn men in intonation and execution are strongly influenced by Sonny Rollins. On balance, after all, it was Rollins in trio configuration, who created the definitive urban portrait “East Broadway Rundown”, and also recorded the legendary geographic specific WAY OUT WEST LP.

Happily Halley and Blake aren’t really opposite sides of the Rollins coin, but very much their own men, creators of equally notable dates. Blake may have a slight edge, but that’s because he seems more ardent here and willing to stretch himself further.

During the course of his CD, he even tackles a version of Rollins’ associate Thelonious Monk’s “San Francisco Holiday”, with both his horns – sometimes simultaneously. However his rubato layering and trilling slurs and glissandi suggests none of Monk’s horn partners. Blake also exits with a reading of “Careless Love” that’s almost primordial in its artlessness. Ballard shuffles like Baby Dodds and Blake’s reed conception is almost completely pre-modern, except for an extended, unaccompanied turnaround that intensifies the improvisation and heats up the bass and drum accompaniment. “Mt. Harissa”, the set’s slow change-of-pace, is treated uniquely, so that it ping-pongs between a contrafact of “Round Midnight” and an Appalachian ballad.

Other than that, the self-composed originals that make up the rest of the disk bristle with contrapuntal color and POMO strength, skronk-jazz if you need a term. During the course of the CD, Blake introduces curved, Ayleresque vibrations on some tunes and accelerating split-tones on others. In some compositions, he spins out a series of squeaking runs, in others emphasizing careful phrasing for a time then unexpectedly jumping into altissimo. On the smaller horn he can be nasal, but is also able to export rounded textures.

Modern, with a full command of col legno and spiccato runs, nonetheless Allison is capable of slapping a bass line that would have made Pops Foster proud. He and Blake often communicate in broken octaves or double counterpoint. Meanwhile Ballard thumps rolls, bounces and pulses as the occasion demands.

Probably the most self-descriptive moments on RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EARS occur on “All of This is Yours”, the penultimate track, where the saxophonist sets up an unaccompanied call-and-response section with himself, alternating high-pitched vibrations and honking bass notes, then finally, after luring the other two into the dance, exits with staccato smears and a reverberating body tube vibrato.

West Coaster Halley does nothing as ear-catching as that, but his outdoor-oriented CD, enhanced with photographs of – you guessed it – mountains and plains, is more organic and earthly, but far from vanishing into New Age solipsism.

Perhaps the most evocative tune is the full band improvisation, “Three Way Shapes”, where each man works out his proper musical description. Here, on soprano saxophone, Halley’s wiggling, Steve Lacy-inflected chirps meet in double counterpoint with the steady bass work of Reed and are punctuated by blunt, echoing strokes from Storrs. With the bass playing appropriately woody and the sax hocketing textures, the piece is a three-way dialogue to the end.

Although he does come up with the odd col legno or sul ponticello passage, Reed is a more prosaic bassist than Allison, preferring to limit himself to producing a steady lope, walking powerfully but unobtrusively in the background. More flamboyant – although his vocalizations and whistling wouldn’t give Phil Minton or even Phil Collins pause – Storrs creates irregular waves of rhythm, wallops and shuffles as often as cross-sticking and drum rattling.

Certain tunes introduce unusual percussion as well. While “Before Dawn” matches what appears to be the resonation of a toy xylophone with buzzing bass lines and winnowing, musette-like soprano runs, other sounds suggest Aboriginal percussion. Halley’s straight-ahead tone is encouraged to spetrofluctuation and concentrated altissimo passages on “Long Valley” with shaken objects and hand percussion that brings to mind Native Indian tom-toms and Yaqui gourd rattles. And that’s not the only spot where the saxophonist’s masculine tenor saxophone tone is aided and abetted by expanded indigenous-American sounding percussion.

On the most quote, avant-garde, end quote, tune, Halley’s “Distant Peaks”, Storrs whistles and ratchets what sound like tubular bells to join with Reed’s chromatic bass strums. Together this interrupts the reedist’s balanced breathy, slurred textures.

More often than not, as on the more-than-10½-minute “The Rub” and other pieces, Halley pegs himself as a Rollins man. Biting off swaggering, double-tongued, staccato lines he expels note after note, each one tougher than the next. Dramatically he also exults in upturned sibilant tones that move from stop-time to squeals and reverberations.

Like John Denver, Halley is still a country boy, while Blake a confirmed urbanite. But both they and their trios have created CDs that can be admired in rural, urban and even suburban circumstances.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Mountains: 1. Problematic 2. Long Valley 3. The Rub 4. Before Dawn 5. Three Way Shapes 6. Mountains and Plains 7. Intermountain Rhumba 8. Distant Peaks 9. Winter Sky

Personnel: Mountains: Rich Halley (tenor and soprano saxophones, percussion); Clyde Reed (bass); Dave Storrs (drums, percussion, whistling and vocals)

Track Listing: Right: 1. Run for Cover 2. Funhouse 3. Mt. Harissa 4. Right Before Your Very Ears 5. Flip 6. Fly with the Wind 7. San Francisco Holiday 8. All of This is Yours 9. Careless Love

Personnel: Right: Michael Blake (tenor and soprano saxophones); Ben Allison (bass); Jeff Ballard (drums)

February 20, 2006

FRANK KIMBROUGH

Lullabluebye
Palmetto Records PM 2100

BEN ALLISON & MEDICINE WHEEL
Buzz
Palmetto Records PM 2101

Affiliated neither with the backwards-gazing Young Lions nor with the try- anything experimenters, New York’s Jazz Composers Collective (JCC) gathers together a rotating cast of musicians and bands to perform and write distinctive contemporary pieces to advance jazz without imitating or rupturing its historic fabric.

Bassist Ben Allison and pianist Frank Kimbrough -- who co-founded the JCC in 1992 and remain two of its composers-in-residence -- refine that concept on these CDs. Problem is, sometimes when you stay in the middle of the road -- even a musical one -- you’re apt to be run over from different directions.

Although more concise, Allison’s disc fares better, with the greater number of colors available with Medicine Wheel, which besides he and the pianist consists of trombonist Clark Gayton, reedists Michael Blake and Ted Nash, plus the refined drumming of Michael Sarin.

Sarin, who has done similar quietly spectacular work for pianist Myra Melford among others, gives some of Allison’s compositions the polyrhythmic oomph they lack. Kimbrough, who takes the piano chair in the JCC’s Herbie Nichols Project, also has a first-rate drummer on board for his trio set. Matt Wilson has backed veterans like bassist Mario Pavone and is certainly proactive on LULLABLUEBYE. There are times, in fact, that it seems like a duo session, with Allison barely present.

This is particularly obvious on “Ode”, Kimbrough’s moderato-paced tribute to pianist Andrew Hill. Accentuating different chordal patterns with his bass drum accents and cymbal resonation, Wilson breaks up the time making the pianist’s playing seem excessively formal.

Percussion inventiveness is on display on John Barry’s “You Only Live Twice” and “Whirl”. The former is an inoffensive, foot-tapping run-through of the James Bond film theme. The later finds Wilson moving from paradiddles and nerve beats to New Thing-style door knocking and rim shots. Coupled with harder tremolos from Kimbrough, it surrounds one of the few extended bass solos on the CD, with Allison ranging his way up to the pegs and down to the bridge. Thematic resolution replicates the beginning with a little more freedom.

Things pick up a bit with “Kid Stuff” and “Ben’s Tune”. “Stuff” finds Wilson’s tick-tocking cymbal raps, rebounds and ratamacues accompanying a bit of Baroque-like invention on Kimbrough’s part, albeit a section with pitchsliding and pointillism. Here though, the repeated note clusters bring early Chick Corea to mind. The other tune is unfussy, unfocussed and unpretentious and sounds like fun to play. It features arpeggio rolls and metronomic time keeping from the pianist, with light voicing that sometimes makes it seem that he’s about to launch into “Ferry Cross The Mersey”. Despite its title as well, Allison’s solo is unspectacularly low-key.

The bassman is more assertive on his own CD, but at least that doesn’t translate into a string of bass solos. Instead he integrates within the more aggressive sounds of the horns and drummer Sarin.

You can see the freedom he gains when you compare tuns such as “R&B Fantasy” and “Green Al”. The first isn’t related to the common definition of R&B, ending up as more like a classically styled fantasia with contrapuntal parts for nearly everyone. Sarin’s press rolls and brush-driven cymbal pressure holds the beat, that’s prevented from becoming too overpowering by modulated, moderated and meshed saxophone and piano lines. Improvising like a more modern, lilting Stan Getz, Blake, on tenor, puts not a note out of place until the very end when he introduces some mannerly squeals and flutter tonguing. Kimbrough comps politely behind him until the other horns enter and take out the piece, with the pianist reprising the rondo-like beginning.

Perhaps the title of “Green Al” is supposed to in a backwards way suggest the Memphis-based gospel-soul singer of the same name in reverse, and it certainly has a slinky, bass-driven call-and-response beat. Sarin on hand-beaten snares and with cymbals scratches would never be confused with the MGs’ Al Jackson, however. And while Blake brings some impressive double tonguing and slurred upper partials to his funk-tinged tenor solo, the unsweaty way he approaches it distinguish him from the Memphis horns.

Sarin’s skills are again showcased on the nearly eight-minute title tune. Manipulating his percussion set so at various times it appears as if he’s playing djembe hand drums, congas and unattached cymbals, he meets slide pecks from Gayton and stratospheric runs from Nash on tenor. Far more than on his own CD, Kimbrough asserts himself, creating high frequency boogie licks as well as squeezing a handful of keys into a tremolo countermelody. By the end, the horn fills have turned to a constant vamp.

After Sarin, it’s Blake who emerges as the most consistent soloist, with a tone that ranges from wide and fruity to delineated and free. His Asiatic and Latinesque “Mauritania” provides a showcase from Nash’s crisp flute tones and growling plunger work from Gayton.

Everyone’s playing appears to need firming up however on “Erato”, a transcription of a 1960s’ tune by pianist Hill, who was also celebrated with “Ode” on Kimbrough’s CD. Here the floating romantic line becomes too smooth under the double counterpoint of Nash’s breathy tenor and a stolid bass line. The placid piano chords don’t help either.

Both Allison and Kimbrough, plus their JCC associates, are well on their way to establish unique identities. But on the evidence of these CDs, tougher-minded improvising and arrangements must be added to more advanced compositional and conceptional facilities for this to occur.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listings: Lullabluebye: 1. Lullabluebye 2. Centering 3. Kid Stuff 4. Ode 5. Whirl 6. Ghost Dance 7. You Only Live Twice 8. FuBu 9. Ben’s Tune 10. Eventualities

Personnel: Lullabluebye: Frank Kimbrough (piano); Ben Allison (bass); Matt Wilson (drums)

Track Listing: Buzz: 1. Respiration 2. Buzz 3. Green Al 4. Mauritania 5. Erato 6. R&B Fantasy 7. Across The Universe

Personnel: Buzz: Clark Gayton (trombone and bass trombone); Michael Blake (soprano and tenor saxophones); Ted Nash (flute and tenor saxophone); Frank Kimbrough (piano, prepared piano, Wurlitzer piano); Ben Allison (bass); Michael Sarin (drums)

October 11, 2004

FRED HESS

Extended Family
Tapestry 76004-2

TOM CHRISTENSEN
Paths
Playscape PSR #JJ111601

Knowing you limitations and working within them can sometimes be a preferable method of creativity than letting your reach exceed your grasp. At least that’s what becomes clear listening to these two quartet discs, led by fine, but under-celebrated tenor saxophonists.

Denver-based Fred Hess, coordinator of jazz studies at Metropolitan Sate College, is the epitome of the journeyman reedman. Initially influenced by Lester Young, he modesty lists his “current saxophone heroes” as Joe Lovano, Rick Margitza, Bob Berg, Michael Brecker and the much younger Chris Potter. His background, which includes the formation of the Boulder Creative Music Ensemble with trumpeter Ron Miles, as well as work with everyone from ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker, mainstream bassist Ray Brown and avant trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, is easily the equivalent of those reedists. Plus his talents on tenor saxophone are equal if not superior to some of his “heroes”.

EXTENDED FAMILY itself is a sparkling freebop session. Not only did Hess, winner of the Julius Hemphill award for composition in 2000, write all the sprightly tunes, but he also gathered a non-pareil, cross-country group to play them. Rochester, N.Y.-based trumpeter Paul Smoker has made his mark with sonic explorers including multi-woodwind masters Anthony Braxton and Vinny Golia. New York bassist Ken Filiano is not only a longtime Golia associate, but he’s backed up other inside-outside players like trombonist Steve Swell and guitarist Dom Minasi. Drummer Damon Short holds a similar position as Mr. Inside/Outside in his hometown of Chicago.

With a résumé just as impressive as Hess’s, New York-based Tom Christensen, who plays soprano and tenor saxophones, wood flute and English horn on PATHS, has put in time in the bands of Maria Schneider and Toshiko Akiyoshi among others and even played behind Lovano. Big Apple pros, his sidemen are just as impressive as Hess’s and better known. Second reedist Charles Pillow, who struts his stuff on sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet and alto flute, has been a member of Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd, Al Hirt’s Big Band and a back-up musician for Paul Simon. Bassist Ben Allison, who leads is own bands is also part of the highly praised Jazz Composers Collective. Percussionist Satoshi Takeishi has performed with pianist Eliane Elias, flutist Herbie Mann and in cellist Erik Frieldlander’s Topaz.

Christensen, however, seems intent on tackling everything from Miles Davis’ “Nardis” to the standard “You’re My Everything” on the 12 selections on his disc. All of the other tunes are his and the result mixes straightahead jazz with intimations of New Age, World music and even minimalist and Dadaesque sounds. Eclecticism without experimentation doesn’t really gel, so that PATHS, while pleasant, at six seconds shorter than EXTENDED FAMILY, ends ups sounding much, much longer

Ornette Coleman’s compositions would seem to have affected Hess. “Cathy’s Taffy”, for instance is a bouncy, happy line featuring the sax man and trumpeter dancing in and out of each other’s way. Hess, who has extensive playing time with the somewhat melancholic Ron Miles, may have been spurred to more levity by Smoker, whose muted style sometimes resembles a weird combination of Don Cherry and Joe Wilder. The brassman is also able to construct variations at hummingbird speed, and on this finger- snapper Filiano matches him with some frisky pizz work, Short rolls in with beat accents and Hess reiterates the theme in mid-range.

Coleman’s -- and by extension Hess’s -- more sombre side, expressed in a stately bowed bass intro and some high-pitched, alto-range tenor lines, characterizes “Boson”, at nearly 11 minutes the longest track on the disc. Named after a subatomic particle, it features choked, half-valve effects from Smoker accompanied, andante, first only by walking bass, then by drums and arco bull fiddle. In contrast Hess’s tone is pretty legato, at least those time he isn’t honking like Texas tenor Booker Ervin or producing kazoo-like buzzing overtones.

Inversely, “Mr. & Mrs. Clef Take A Vacation” features Smoker’s muted plunger work, as if he was a modern-day Cootie Williams. The most intentionally far-out piece, it also features squeaks, squawks and multiphonics from Hess -- let’s see Brecker or Margitza do that -- as Filiano provides the undercurrent with powerful bowing and Short exercises his bass drum pedal.

Short may have been originally inspired by Gene Krupa, but you’ll find no traces of the Swing Era gum chewer in his percussion feature. “High St.”, which the saxman wrote for him. Expressing unforced weightlessness, he barely hits the cymbals and caresses the snare during his solo. Then again, this tune may be the only one named for a drummer that also features a cappella mid-range tenor sax playing and unaccompanied plunger mute sounds.

In short, by being humble and undemanding and almost undervaluing his talents, Hess and his quartet members have created a fine, individualistic statement.

PATHS is just as pleasant as the other quartet CD, but there seems to be no prevailing challenge within it. Three one-minute-or-shorter improv tracks, named for poems by Northern California hippie icon Richard Brautigan, emphasize this. The band’s improv idea of avant-garde effects seem to involve nonsense dialogue and the sort of pseudo-outside, off-kilter noises that were probably tossed out for amusement in the big bands with which Christensen played.

This same sort of taunt, within-a-blues progression appears on “Footnote”, with Christensen on soprano saxophone and Pillow on sopranino sax trilling a bit too nasally. Meantime Takeishi is producing conga-drum-like tones and Allison offers strong bass thumps. Finally the theme gets reprised as a rondo.

“Longing, Hoping, Longing” opens with some interesting West Coast Jazz-like polyphony with tenor saxophone matched with Pillow’s bass clarinet. Those clarinet tones provide a fine cushion for Christensen’s work, at least until the percussionist gets a

little too busy with his effects which include maracas-like shakes and Guiro-like scratches. No doubt this versatility could get these players jobs in any situation, but their identity as more than journeymen doesn’t come through here.

Nadir is probably reached on “Sam Was Born”, a tender salute to the leader’s nephew. Trouble is. except for trying to figure out how Allison gets guitar-strumming accompaniment from his bass, the overall effect is strictly limp New Age. Christensen’s wood flute and Pillow’s alto flute unite to provide a sound like a couple of piping banshees, while the percussion appears to introduce a steel drum to the proceedings.

Christensen’s English horn adds a touch of light, double-reed uniqueness to a couple of tracks. Still the pastoral accompaniment provided on these tracks by bass flute or bass clarinet played by Andrew Sterman, is reminiscent of a formal string section dampening the improvisational vitality. Considering Sterman is a veteran woodwind players for the Philip Glass Ensemble -- he played on the composer's opera, “Einstein on the Beach” -- his classical-style reading may have been intentional.

It’s hard to fault Christensen for good ideas and good intentions, and PATHS is undoubtedly agreeable enough. Perhaps he -- and his quartet -- will do better next time out. Maybe they should also listen to Hess’s CD.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Extended: 1. Good Question 2. Don’t Talk About It 3. Cathy’s Taffy 4. Mr. & Mrs. Clef Take A Vacation 5. Extended Family 6. High Street 7. Boson 8. Kyudo For Ken

Personnel: Extended: Paul Smoker (trumpet); Fred Hess (tenor saxophone); Ken Filiano (bass); Damon Short (drums)

Track Listing: Paths: 1. Just To Play 2. Dude* 3. Footnote 4. Negative Clank 5. Nostalgia^ 6. Iquique 7. Propelled by Portals 8. You're My Everything 9. Longing Hoping Longing 10. Critical Can Opener 11. Nardis 12. Sam Was Born

Personnel: Paths: Tom Christensen (soprano and tenor saxophones, wood flute, English horn); Charles Pillow (sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones, clarinet, bass clarinet, alto flute); Andrew Sterman (bass flute*, bass clarinet ^); Ben Allison (bass); Satoshi Takeishi (drums)

May 5, 2003

MICHAEL BLAKE

Elevated
Knitting Factory KFW-304

Now this is exactly what a modern mainstream session should sound like.

As the enfants terribles of the so-called downtown New York scene reach their late thirties and early forties, they’ve finally gained the polish to add a version of historical jazz to the POMO pastiche of rock, blues, electronica and noise that has been their raison d’être. Case in point, as he shows on this relaxed session, is Vancouver, B.C.-born, Brooklyn-based saxophonist Michael Blake, 37.

Sideman with raucous fake-jazz bands like the Lounge Lizards and Sex Mob, and a member of jazz/folk band Slow Poke with slide guitarist David Tronzo, on ELEVATED, Blake has assembled the sort of horn-and-rhythm date that would have made earlier saxists like Zoot Sims or Gene Ammons proud.

Part of his desire to put a new spin on the tradition may come from the saxophonist’s membership in the Jazz Composers Collective (JCC), which also supplies pianist Frank Kimbrough and bassist Ben Allison to the date. Inventive drummer Mike Mazor is the fourth man here. Not only do JCC members compose, as its name says, but they also devise new interpretations of little-known classic material like the tunes of pianist Herbie Nichols.

Although the only non-Blake composition here is pianist Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Calypso Minor”, each of the nine tunes works as a continuation of the modern jazz heritage. However unlike a neo-con’s note-for-note Dixieland-like recreations, Blake’s pieces augment tradition by appending original fillips to the basics -- just as the final track here is entitled “New Blues, Old News”.

Blake’s particular achievement is that he does most of this obliquely, without setting off the equivalent of musical firecrackers. So while obvious surprises -- to use an oxymoron -- like the tabla-like drum beat on the first number or the utilization of two horns simultaneously elsewhere -- may first hit the ear, other compositions are more quietly illustrative of his mrthods.

On “Merle the Pearl”, for instance, the blend of piano and soprano saxophone at the beginning makes it seem as if the band will soon break into Duke Ellington’s “Take The Coltrane”, written for the quartet the composer shared with Trane. But very quickly Blake modulates his tone a few decades further back producing the sort of funky butt clarinet-like style that characterized Ellington’s so-called Jungle Band. At the same time Allison creates a swift and stirring foursquare bass solo that easily plays off drum accents. Alternately, “Addis Ababa”, may reference Ethiopia, but only if that country’s musical sounds included a montuno section and a tenor saxophonist with Ben Webster’s deep breathy tone.

Webster’s dark caressing, late-night sax stylings are most clearly the model for the bluesy “Lucky Charms”, which was ostensibly written to salute star-crossed saxist Lucky Thompson. Making time with Kimbrough’s bop-tinged, right-handed tinkling, Blake’s wide vibrato and bottom of the horn swoops drip sensuality.

Moving dangerously close -- by mistake? -- as burlesque? -- to Kenny G. territory on “Anthem for No Country”, Allison’s alternating bowed and plucked bass and the pianist’s hearty gospelish, treble tinkling offensive eventually manage to straighten up the tune’s backbone -- as any good anthem should. As a matter of fact, before he ends it with an echoing crescendo, the composition has begun to resemble Blake’s countryman’s Oscar Peterson’s “Hymn to Freedom” more than any conventional anthem.

Wading deep into the low notes as he walks out his solo on Ibrahim’s “Calypso Minor”, the bassist dives also so deeply in the mainstream that he’s practically underwater. Meanwhile Blake is showcasing some POMO squeaks from his tenor, then meshing with Kimbrough’s chipped bass notes before finally playing both saxes simultaneously to create some horn obbligatos.

If musicians like Blake can rescue the real mainstream from the hands --and mouths -- of recreators, they can continue to prove that there’s still a lot that can be created from evolutionary, as well as revolutionary, music. Undoubtedly this CD is exhibit A for the defense.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. In the Arms of Ali 2. Surfing Sahara 3. Elevated 4. Addis Ababa 5. Merle the Pearl 6. Calypso Minor 7. Lucky Charms 8. Anthem for No Country 9. New Blues, Old News

Personnel: Michael Blake (tenor and soprano saxophones); Frank Kimbrough (piano); Ben Allison (bass); Mike Mazor (drums)

May 3, 2002

THE HERBIE NICHOLS PROJECT

Strange City
Palmetto PM 2077

Appreciation for the work of iconoclastic composer/pianist Herbie Nichols has grown in the years since his 1963 death from leukemia at 44. Thought of during his lifetime as a fringe performer whose three trio LPs were less appealing than even Thelonious Monk's spiky work, the excellence of his compositions was only proclaimed by his friend, trombonist Roswell Rudd.

In the years since, others have come to agree with the assessment, most notably pianist Frank Kimbrough and bassist Ben Allison, who put together this septet to perform Nichols work. This, its third CD, concentrates in the main on the pianist's unrecorded tunes, arranged for the sort of four-horns-and-rhythm-section that Nichols would have loved to use. Nichols' recorded legacy is all in the standard piano trio format.

Part of the Jazz Composers Collective, and made up of musicians who have put in time with Allison's Medicine Wheel, the Lounge Lizards, Conference Call and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO), the players here are youngish, technically fluent and capable of anything demanded by the lead sheets.

As a bonus, the arrangements, which purportedly were worked out in the studio or in performance, have enough counterpoint, call and response and steady movement in them to utilize each man's talents and certainly sound as if they were carefully crafted.

Biggest surprise is trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, who freed from the LCJO, demonstrates some Tricky Sam Nanton trombone vocalization on "Blue Shout" and outstanding plunger work on "The Happenings". The former is given a solid, funky reading, making it sound like Horace Silver's "The Preacher" and is nudged along by some horse-like whinnies from trumpeter Ron Horton. Everyone is present and accounted for on the later, with its Monkish theme and Art Blakey-style press rolls from Matt Wilson. Soprano saxophonist Michael Blake is the standout here, double-timing and squeaking glissandos like a Swing era clarinetist, without losing sight of the melody. Finally he ends up soaring over the others' melded horn riffs.

Thoughts about contemporaries of Nichols come to the fore with pieces like "Enrapture" however. Horton's floating, muted trumpet style updates Kenny Dorham and Kimbrough's light-fingered comping make you wonder why no working bandleader like Dorham, Monk, Blakey or Silver ever picked up on Nichols' output: from the evidence here it wasn't too far out for their audience. Some of it, like "Some Wandering Bushmen", may have been in odd meters and moved along at a different gait then they preferred. But, despite the title, there are overt African references here and between Allison's straightahead timekeeping and Ted Nash's long-lined, steadfast tenor solo, the piece easily sounds like the one of the catchy, repetitive lines that filled the Jazz Messengers' book.

Perhaps one of the clues is inadvertently brought forward by Kimbrough on "Karna Kangi", the sole piano trio outing. Steadily steered by Allison and Wilson, the pianist appears to take Nichols' quirky melodies and filter it through Silver's conception. Probably a technically better musician, then Nichols, as are the others here, he also appears to be inherently more conservative than a loner like Nicholas ever was.

STRANGE CITY is disc memorable for the way it unearths more of Nichols' exceptional work and, by adding horns, giving it a new resonance. Individually none of the musicians can be faulted. Collectively they would probably have been the perfect group for the pianist to have led. But could he have played among them?

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Moments Magical 2. Enrapture 3. Delights 4. Blue Shout 5. Strange City 6. Karna Kangi 7. The Happenings 8. Change of Season 9. Some Wandering Bushmen 10. Shuffle Montgomery

Personnel: Ron Horton (trumpet, flugelhorn); Wycliffe Gordon (trombone); Michael Blake (soprano saxophone); Ted Nash (tenor saxophone); Frank Kimbrough (piano); Ben Allison (bass); Matt Wilson (drums)

November 12, 2001