Vinny Golia Quartet, Take Your Time

Vinny Golia has for 30 years give-or-take created vibrant uncompromising jazz that bears his distinctive waterprint. That he is very much alive and well is quite apparent on the 2007 recording just now coming out: Take Your Time (Relative Pitch 1003).

It's a quartet of fine players--Vinny on tenor, alto and soprano, Bobby Bradford on cornet, Ken Filano on bass, and Alex Cline on drums.

This one is remarkable for the Golia-Bradford interactions, the interaction of the two with Cline and Filiano, and the latter with themselves.

It is an appealing straightforwardly "new thing" date, with heads and plenty of space for the soloists. Bradford sounds his effective self; Vinny moves to his own inner voice, original all the way, and the Filiano-Cline combination catapults the music ever upwards.

Is this album a huge revelation and the best thing Maestro Golia has ever done? No. But it IS an excellently realized, unpretentious meeting of four accomplished improvisational masters, who by being themselves, by playing with soul and fire, by their candor and concentration, give you a lively set of new jazz.

And that's what it is all about. Part of it anyway.

Rich Halley Teams with Bobby Bradford in New Live Quartet Recording

Tenor-man Rich Halley has recently released a new recording of a lively quartet featuring himself and the legendary Bobby Bradford as the two-horn front line, with Clyde Reed and Carson Hailey ably taking care of the rhythm section roles on bass and drums, respectively. Specifics: the CD is matter-of-factly titled Live at the Penofin Jazz Festival (Pine Eagle 001)

This is post-Ornettian jazz. It can swing or go into looser free-time, and it conceives of the solo-ensemble interactions as subject to implied and/or overtly stated linear harmonic-melodic continuity. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are changes that are played over all of the time, but implies a relation to the changes-bop that went before it.

Now I happen to be quite attracted to that sort of thing, as many are. What's nice about this one is that it puts it all together with worthy head-structures, strongly personal blowing from the two principals, and a good dynamic from the ensemble. Rich and Bobby sound especially good together, and Mr. Halley is right up there as a soloist worth checking out.

This is a great way to spend some listening time. Recommended.