Time stands perfectly still for Don Aliquo, the Nashville tenor saxophonist and Director of Jazz Studies at Middle Tennessee State University who accurately describes his style as "out-and-out East Coast mainstream." So it is on his fourth album, which mostly honors the hard bop and modal bop rituals and flights so often heard in Rudy Van Gelder's studios in the '60s. That said, Aliquo does come up with some worthy, interesting, original tunes based on the old formulas -- like "Spiral Staircase," "Time and Again," or the archetypically Blue Note hard bop-style title track. So does Rufus Reid, whose active, formidable bass darts around the burst of polyphony near the end of his composition "Forever on My Mind," and anchors and animates the rhythm section (pianist Dana Landry, drummer Jim White) everywhere else. Now and then, they do alter course a bit, eliminating the piano and straying into gentle free bop on "Frayed." Accompanying the originals are a pair of quasi-standards -- a modal workout on Kurt Weill's "This Is New" and a soulful drift through "Never Never Land" (from the musical Peter Pan). Aliquo's tone is thin and dusky, and his fingers are conversant with all the twists and turns of classic hard bop, while the solos of trumpeter Clay Jenkins tend to wander frequently. The musicians are very well recorded with clarity and definition that might even impress Van Gelder.
© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo
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