People & Places

There are few saxophonists who can melt the hardest of hearts as reliably as Quartet West player Ernie Watts. Eighty this autumn, Watts replicates that feat yet again on Seattle pianist Marc Seales' engaging opener 'Rue Cler.'

A quartet album, the line-up is completed by bassist Bruce Lett and by drummer Moyes Lucas Jr. There's an energetic version of Wayne Shorter 1977 Weather Report Heavy Weather classic 'Palladium' among the main draws.

Watts goes way back with Seales - he was there with him on New Stories' Speakin' Out issued in the late-1990s.

Seales (born 1954) retired this year as a professor of jazz studies at the University of Washington after decades on faculty. As a listener I know him largely for his contributions to Mark Murphy 1990s classic Song for the Geese (RCA Victor, 1997).

People & Places is quite understated in places, particularly 'Prelude' but is lit up once again by Watts on 'For You My Dear'. Clearly - and it's another Seales tune - the pianist is a big romantic and mercifully this piece lands just the right side of being too treacly.

The album gets down and dirty on 'The Muddy Chicago Blues' no prizes for guessing who the Muddy in question is and is enlivened by the tune. But I wasn't so taken by Seales numbers 'The Gingi' and 'Ascending Truth'. Nevertheless the Seales/Watts co-written 'Home Light' works well. Worth having especially if you are a Watts fan and as an insight into a pianist who should be better known beyond Seattle given his quiet impressionistic modal elegance and taste.