Signals

Stowell's guitar joins Kevin Woods' trumpet and flugelhorn and Miles Black's piano. Woods' "Few Regrets" opens with warm guitar and lyrical piano then moves into a floating mid tempo. Woods' horn is warm, low-end and lyrical moving in a very Chet Baker/Mulligan tight warmness. Guitar touches with amazing odd chords, and then the piano warmly and lyrically dances the tune. Woods also penned "Solo En Viento Sabe" with the odd, darting, off-angle lines that roll into a samba. Piano states the line, horn follows with Stowell supplying a bass feel. Tight back and forth conversation is fun and delightful, think playfulness and exploration. Love this tune! Woods' horn takes right off on Bill Evan's "Peri Scope" with warm clusters of horn, while the piano jams, swings, and underneath are rumbles of the guitar with some unusual chords. Again, they are having fun and revert to straight time as Stowell swings the roof. Solid, light, darting piano solo is full of joy. Pianist Black penned "Signals," a ballad. This is lyrical, inviting at a slow rhythm to introduce Stowell's guitar that soon releases to Woods' horn, taking the solo with an uptick on the rhythm. Stowell is light and crystalline here, and Woods is very Chet Baker in his language. Beautifully developed and executed. Arlen's "My Shining Hour" has a Latin riff, and the guitar supplies bass in Latin bits. Piano touches and cements the beat. Love the guitar counterpoint runs to the horn and sometimes to the piano. Almost make a boogie out of this. Amazing. Black penned "Since Last December" with a slow horn intro and standard piano support to the ballad. The piano walks slowly as Stowell's guitar plays slowly, choosing just a few notes and holding his sound with grace and elegance. This gorgeous piece has the writer's piano working the high part of the keyboard, and then back to horn. Warm grace throughout. Woods wrote "Big T's" with a modern bluesy boogie piano opening, and then the horn takes over and swings with a big Stowell sound on the bass range of the guitar. Mixture of all three instruments is here particularly well arranged. Horn is straight ahead, open, clear, and fun and releases to a swinging Stowell guitar followed by lyrical dashes from the piano. Best straight-ahead open horn shot. Then more of Stowell with his quick runs, a modern swinging blues, Jobim's "Intil Paisagem" never pushes the samba but rather hints as the horn is straight ahead, and then Stowell takes the guitar very lightly into the movement. Later he returns with a higher volume and directness to his solo. Woods' "One For B.E." is classic Baker, warm and swinging, tight note runs, expressive and engaging. Stowell moves from a bass assistant (a la Mulligan) to an upbeat lyrical guitar solo. They trade, dart, and play for over seven minutes on tight exchanges. Love when all three of them dance over and around each other toward the end. "Virgo" by Shorter has Black on a shimmering piano, suspends and holds, then releasing to the horn for a deliberate walk. Next is a warm Stowell guitar walk escorting the horn back in. All the while, the piano supports, accents rhythms, and punctuates. They just explore and overlay ideas. "I Hear A Rhapsody" is again a Baker-like, warm horn and tight note clusters with the piano and guitar running underneath but also taking off in counterpoint moves. What joyful fun. This was one of the most fun CDs of modern jazz I have recently heard, joyful, creative, swinging, inventive counterpoint, never redundant or boring. Recommended. John Bishop and Origin's fine packaging has a six-panel fold-over with CD slid into the right panel. Cover is a clean street shot. Panel two tight in and well done. Fourth panel explains the project, fifth has songs' times and composers and contact info for each player. Final panel has songs, times, players, production credits, and Origin website. Always well designed and useful artistic packaging by Bishop and Origin. Back binding is clean for easy shelf retrieval. CD lists tunes and times.