The heavy hitting team of Jeremy Pelt/tp, Vincent Herring/as, Wayne Escoffery/ts, Paul Bollenback/g, David Kikoski/p, Essiet Essiet/b and Otis Brown III/dr at a February, 2024 “Daylight Session” at Smoke Jazz Club, and the light is shining brightly. The gents are in a grooving mood throughout, as Brown shuffles of to Buffalo for the horns on the fun and funky “Filthy McNasty” with Bollenback and Escoffery swaying on “Too Blue” Herring boogaloos the daylights out of “Mean Greens” and rides Brown’s backbeat on “Strasbourg/St. Denis” , getting into a Chitlin’ Circuit mood on “The Chicken”. Pelt makes mince meat of “Driftin” and Bollenback lays down low on “Slow Drag” with the team goosing the usually elegiac “Naima” into a Don Cornelius soul train. Wide wails!