Tenor saxist Rich Halley brings together intuitive masters Matthew Shipp/p, Michael Bisio/b and Newman Taylor Baker/dr for some stretched out original explorations. Halley’s music always have a Charles Mingusy feel to it, combining the jazz tradition with stratospheric adventures, and this ep is no exception.
The gents go through a rapid run on the title tune, with Halley in warm embers with his richly toned tenor around Baker’s loose sticks and Shipp’s ectomorphic ivories. Some prismatic colors are richly painted on a bopping, “Angular Logic” with Baker riding the whip like a mule train and Halley probing deep in magma for the palpable “Inferred” after Bisio’s bass bends and snaps like Reese Witherspoon. Altissimo shrieks from Halley and melancholic musings by Shipp close things out on the high tide of “Following the Stream”, with the music ebbing and flowing like the tide on the beach. Plans drawn out in sand with shifting shapes.