I’m always impressed by a release by a leader who puts out music where you can’t tell which musician is in charge. In other words, everyone on this disc gets a chance go shine, and there are no glory hogs on this collection of well conceived and arranged originals. In fact, the tunes here have a fascinating cohesiveness about them; this is no “theme and solo” collection. Tunes like “Signals Of Rain” and “Bullfight” have moods, theme and directional changes, with solos by Josue Lopez/ts, Marco Vasconcellos-Torcuato Mariano/g and David Feldman-Renato Ronseca/p that veer in and out of the multi-layered themes like Italian pedestrians on Via Del Corso. The flexible rhythm team of the leader with Allen Pontes/dr is able to shift gears and go from funky (“The Trip Of The Elephant”) to sublime (“The Old City Bullfight”). Nothing is predictable here, but it never is cloyingly clever. It swings, sways, dips and dives, always keeping your attention, but never jarring your senses. One to look for!
Adventure Music
www.adventure-music.com