Leader Jason Yeager puts together a mix and match septet including Lucas Pino/ts-bcl-cl, Patrick Laslie/ts-bcl-fl, Alphonso Horne/tp-fh, Riley Mulherke/tp-fh, Mike Fahie/tb, Yuan Su/vib, Danny Weller/b, Jay Sawyer/dr and guest Miguel Zenon/as on this tribute to the famed novelist Kurt Vonnegut.
Zenon rumbles through the tricky sticks of Sawyer on “Bokonon” and is lyrical around the reeds on “Unk’s Fate”. The horns sweetly slither on “Now It’s The Woman’s Turn” and are rich on “Rudy’s Waltz”, elegiac with Su’s vibes for “Blue Fairy Godmmother”. Laslie’s bass clarinet broods with Yeager on “Nancy’s Revenge” Pino’s licorice stick sways with Horn on “Blues For Billy Pilgrim” and the team as fun on the stop and starting “Kilgores’ Creed”. The only deviance is an eerie collection of effects and voices on “So It Goes”, but so it goes. Is it better than the novel?