Nicholas Biello / Manuel Weyand, Fourthought

Hard bop finds some enthusiastic and soulful adepts in Nicholas Biello and Manuel Weyand's album Fourthought (self-released). It's a quartet at work here--Biello on alto and soprano sax, Weyand on the drums, Cameron Kayne on the doublebass, Kerong Chok on piano. They do good blowing originals by Biello or Weyand, and an arrangement of "On Green Dolphin Street."

Biello has that McLean-Cannonball fire, Weyand plays in a well-schooled modern bop drum style, both in solo and timework, Chok accompanies and solos with creative authority in a post-Corea-Tyner-Walton sort of way and Kayne gets a nice sound and makes good note choices.

It's a very together disk with a reverence for tradition and no loss of fire and conviction. There are plenty of bands out there that try and revive this form of jazz. Few do it as convincingly as these folks. It goes there. It gets there!