Hard Bop jazz that sounds like it was produced by Alfred Lion? What is the label called? Red Note?!? Here are two very impressive albums that make you glad for glasnost.
Tenor saxist Oleg Kireyev teams up with an all star team of Tom Harrell/tp-fh, Keith Javors/p, Ben Williams/b and EJ Strickland for a swingin’ mix of originals and jazz standards. His sax is warm and room filling, giving hints of the Jazz Messengers with the easy cadence of “Inwardly” with Harrell and Kireyev forming a clean and swinging front line, while Strickland delivers a neat little hip hop groove underneath the clever take of “Body and Soul.” The team shuffles on a soulful “The Meeting,” and then, there’s this reading of “Caravan” that includes a wild opening aria on the tenor, then vocal chaos before snapping into a bacchanal avalanche of groove. WHEW! Muscular and musical; welcome home, comrade!
Pianist Misha Tsiganov is just as bopular, bringing together a Horace Silver-spooned team of Alex Sipiagin/tp-fh, Seamus Blake/ts, Hans Glawischnig/b and Donald Edwards/dr through a similar collection of originals and covers. The covers reveal the pianist’s allegiances, as “The Night Has A Thousand Eyes” has the leader delivering an irresistible Latin groove with Sipiagin glowing on the brass, and “Infant Eyes” saunters and sways as Blake rolls in like the late tide fog. Tsiganov’s piano is lovely on the graceful “October In Kiev” while he gets intricate with Edwards on the tricky “Infant Eyes.” His touch includes a dash of pre-fusion era Hancock and Cedar Walton as the soul of hard bop is in abundance here, closing on the title track. This one’s a keeper as well!
Bring these two bands onto the Western Front, I mean Coast!