The muscles were flexed at Dizzy’s Club with bassist Gerald Cannon at the helm, leading the testosteroned team of Eddie Henderson/tp, Sherman Irby/as, Joe Lovano/ts, Steve Turre/tb, Dave Kikoski/p and Lenny White through a collection of tunes associated with John Coltrane’s alumni Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner.
This type of material, post bop and modal, is like putty in the hands of these giants, and everyone plays to their strengths, with Henderson bold and beautiful on “EJ’s Blues” and muted and suave around Lovano on “Three Elders”. Speaking of Lovano, he belts it out on a bel canto “Search For Peace” , and is Coltranesque on “Contemporary Focus”. Kikoski is nimble on the skipping trio work of “Inception” and the leader strums a nasty intro to “Contemporary Focus” while digging in deep during “Home”. They make is sound so easy, but if it is, how come no one else is doing it like this anymore?