Tineke Postma, Greg Osby, Sonic Halo

Wherever we are in improvised music we are always subject to the mental compass points we oriented ourselves with. Depending on those we could think we are halfway on the way to some goal, or beyond that goal and on the way to another. It depends on how you chose to get your bearings.

Take for example the sort of jazz-rock-funk that Miles had much to do with and then some of the acoustic-progressive furtherings that Steve Coleman and Dave Holland were important exponents of. We could say that now we are at the full flowering of a progressive, free-flowing post-bop rock-funk sound. Or perhaps we have gotten to a halfway point. We don't know what is to come in the years ahead so we cannot be sure of where we are on the "map."

One thing though is this: wherever we are, the album Sonic Halo (Challenge 73370) is in the vanguard. It's a two-horn alto-soprano frontline of Tineke Postma and Greg Osby, with some very excellent sidemen in Matt Mitchell on piano and electric piano, Linda Oh on acoustic bass and Dan Weiss on drums.

Dan can be counted on to contribute nicely to whatever he is on, so that in itself is a staple of this music. Linda and Matt are subtle and very worthy voices here. And then there's the two horn line of Greg and Tineke. These two work hand-in-glove so well that they open up a sort of zone where through alternating compositions and together-blowing they stand out as exceptional.

This is very progressive modal-centered music with sophisticated harmonies, complex rhythmic hits, and an open-sky hipness that gives a basic straight-eight funk an evolution similar in complexity to what later bop did for swing. Endless free flowing variation is the rule here, and it all is handled with inventive, brilliant ease.

And the blowing is very hip indeed. Postma and Osby are perfect foils for each other; the three-rhythm team make sure that the cauldron never stops boiling, so to speak.

It's music that bears your most intensive aural inspection and comes off as breakthrough soundings.

Sonic Halo has wings, has brains, has soul. It is an excellent listen!

Rob Derke & the NY Jazz Quartet, Blue Divide

Rob Derke and the NY Jazz Quartet is sponsored by the non-profit NY JAZZ Initiative. Many of their appearances around NY and their various tours I assume are done under the auspices of the foundation. But even if that weren't so this is a band that plays an advanced version of the music that bears hearing in any event.

Their album Blue Divide (Zoho 201401) makes that clear. Rob Derke has a very vibrant soprano sax tone with much facility and inventive powers on the instrument. He manages to channel the full tone of Bechet and Coltrane in his own way, projects extraordinarily well and has the ability to captivate in his solos. Aruan Ortiz plays an out kind of freebop piano where the chords are thick and complex yet rooted in changes. His solo style continues that feel, whether in block-chord fashion or post-Herbie-Nichols, post-Monk phrasings both asymmetrical and appropriate. Carlo De Rosa plays a foundational bass that expands the tonality in good ways and he can solo with interesting results. Drummer Eric McPherson has an ingrained swing and does what a freebop-context drummer might be expected to do and does it well--play advanced time.

The compositions are by Derke or De Rosa, with the exception of a group imorov and a Herbie Hancock number ("Still Time"). The heads and structures fit the style of the band and give the ear some guideposts for orientation in nice ways. And they are well put together, too.

We have some solidly exceptional modern jazz in these grooves. It's a freebop spectacular from a band that bears close attention.

Chris Clark Quintet, Cedar Wisely

I don't tell you what to listen to, any more than someone tells me these days. All I do, and really all I can do, is describe things that catch my ear and you then do with that information what you will. If there is a consistency to what I do like it is I hope in no way programmatic. I don't have an agenda other than talking about the musical world we live in and what that may be about. If some of that is avant and some is not, some is electronic and some is not, if there is a certain inclusion of genres that in time has a consistency (assuming you read all three blogs), it's still all about the music.

So today there is some open neo-contemporary jazz from tenorist Chris Clark and his quintet, Cedar Wisely (Songlines 1599-2). Chris is a very inventive player with much to say, with a very nicely fluid chromatic improvisational stance. His tenor sound has the post-Shorter-Trane hard purity with harmonic overtones at expressive points of phrases. He writes music for the sextet that challenges the band to get into things yet also stands upright as substantial in itself.

The band is very good. Peter Epstein's alto and soprano nicely complement and spell Clark's tenor, giving a contrastive second horn that fills out the front line well. David Ake at the piano is a subtle ensemble player and a sort of post-Bleyian-Corean-Hancockian-Jarrettian, thoughtful soloist. Zack Teran on contrabass has a tightly wound looseness in tandem with drummer Jesus Vega yet also solos with authority. Vega is deceptively disarming in his matter-of-factness, yet there is a Motian-like instinctive and deliberate rightness to what he does.

Cedar Wisely satisfies. It does not get overtly in-your-face as much as it gives smart and inventive expression to the musical thoughts of the participants. And perhaps jazz should always have something of that. Not the sound of surprise as much as the sound of humanity speaking freely and eloquently. That's what Clark and company are doing.