Guitarist Shawn Purcell sounds like he’s imbibed deeply from the waters of John Scofield on this classy session. His sandied tone teams with a mix and match team, cored with bassist Regan Brough, pianist Todd Simon and drummer Stockton Helbing while cut and pasting with Darden Purcell/voc, Luis Hernandez/ts.
With Hernandez’s thick tenor, Purcell brings in his muscular fuzzy tone for some assertive post bop as they dig in on “Swirl,” bop on “Symmetricity In The Linear Fashion” and get frisky along with Simon’s Rhodes and Darden’’s vocals on “Norm’s View.” The Purcells get more dreamy, as Darden evokes sounds a la Luciana Souza on the delicate “A Bela” with Shawn keeping that same dainty thought with Simon on a wonderful read of “Here’s That Rainy Day.” Purcell burns to the bone with Simon on the feisty “’Trane-ing Wheels” boogaloos on “Red Velvet Cake” and shows his edgy side on a bluesy “Missed It By An Inch” with Simon on the Hammond and Helbing doing some fun stuff with the Flexatone. A good one for fans of ax grinders.