Waltz New

TOM DEMPSEY [gtr] and TIM FERGUSON [b] have been recording together almost 20 years and WALTZ NEW [OA2 Records 22140] is their latest collaboration. This 6/16/15 recording is, among other things, a tribute to their friend Jim Hall and of the 11 tracks, 6 are Hall compositions, with the rest standards and one Dempsey original. This is, I believe, the second recording by the quartet (the first issued 2010). The quartet is smooth and very mainstream bop. Dempsey is warm and there is little sense of reaching and he manages comfort without triteness. Joel Frahm [ts] fits in well to the mainstream musical surrounding and Eliot Zigmund [drm], the senior member of the group, keeps churning things up be it ballads or uptempo.