Samuel Blaser Quartet, Spring Rain

Trombonist Samuel Blaser comes front-and-center in a new album that further cements his reputation as an important exponent on the new jazz scene. He and his quartet give us much to like on Spring Rain (Whirlwind 4670). It is a trombonist's tribute to Jimmy Giuffre, not what you might have especially expected if you know Blaser's previous work (type his name in the search box to get the previous reviews of his music here), but then when you listen it has a logic of its own that fits in with the Blaser approach and goes a long way to bring the Giuffre sensibility into today.

The album features three Giuffre compositions, two by Carla Bley and the rest Blaser originals that take some of the implications of vintage Giuffre and extend them. The band is a quartet that packs lots on invention and swing into the proceedings. Russ Lossing is on piano and keys, Drew Gress on bass, and Gerald Cleaver on drums. Samuel and the three are fully mature, innovative artists in their prime and the music shows it with excellence.

There is a Giuffre-like attention to sound statements on each instrument, trombone first and foremost but no less the piano-keys, the bass and the drums. They can engage in chamber like new improvisations out of time, in the manner of the middle-period Giuffre groups, they can swing heartily on thematically well-developed modes, and/or they can get vibrantly "free."

Blaser sounds great, choosing his notes carefully and colorfully, with even a nod to Mangelsdorfian multi-phonics but in the main an open-horn liquidity. Lossing comes through with some really fetching work. And the Gress-Cleaver rhythm team functions very nicely as part of the melodic invention as well as the propulsors of a very hip time sense.

I found this album a milestone in creative improv presentness. The choice themes when utilized inspire all to go further and the freely conceived moments continue the inspiration in a first-class fashion. Samuel Blaser is a top trombonist in the new jazz field and this quartet qualifies as one of the most vibrant out there today.

Need I say more?

Jeff Davis, Leaf House

The Fresh Sound/New Talent series showcases up and coming players, those perhaps not yet well known but filled with promise, at least ideally. Funny thing about the volume by Jeff Davis, Leaf House (Fresh Sound/New Talent 407). It sounds anything but. I don't mean it doesn't sound new. It does. It doesn't sound "up and coming." It sounds most definitely "already there."

It's Jeff Davis on drums, Eivind Opsvik, contrabass, and Russ Lossing, piano, for a trio that has great power and finesse, something you don't expect from youthful, promising neophytes.

It's a set of Jeff Davis compositions that do a great job getting the trio into a spontaneously prosaic mode.

The trio gels beautifully. Jeff is loose, free, inventive, strong. Eivind is a beautiful bassist with sound command and note choice that take him far from the norm. Russ is a pianist of complexity and directness combined.

The ambiance of this date is something like the classic Paul Bley trios of his middle period--steeped in the tradition, working way outside the old tradition but run through with its essence.

Yet it sounds not like the Bley trios of yesterday, in that this is "new" music. Like how things go when they go right, it is steeped in the Bley tradition, so to speak, yet is working its way outside the tradition, though run through with its essence.

That can be how it goes. One to another bringing the one to the other and on again. How Leaf House goes. Don't miss this one.