Joe Farnsworth's fifth solo album, 2020's
Time to Swing, finds the adept jazz drummer leading a relaxed, yet hard-swinging all-star quartet featuring trumpeter
Wynton Marsalis, pianist
Kenny Barron, and bassist
Peter Washington. Whether playing with the supergroup
One for All, or with esteemed veterans like the late
Harold Mabern (with whom he recorded the posthumously released 2020 album
Mabern Plays Mabern),
Farnsworth has displayed his strong grasp of the acoustic jazz tradition. Blessed with an impeccable sense of time, sparkling cymbal skills, and warm empathy for backing soloists,
Farnsworth is the epitome of the modern jazz drummer. He brings all of this experience to bear on
Time to Swing. The first half of the album features the quartet with
Marsalis, a sound that evokes the trumpeter's early work on album's like
Black Codes (From the Underground) and
Live at Blues Alley. As if to underline this connection, they dive into
Marsalis' briskly attenuated "Hesitation," a song culled from his 1982 debut. They also offer an ebullient take on
Farnsworth's midtempo blues "The Good Shepherd," and sink into the dusky romanticism of the classic ballad "Darn That Dream." For the second half of the album
Farnsworth pares his group down to a trio, burrowing into
Barron's Latin-tinged "Lemuria," as well as an urbane reading of "Prelude to a Kiss" and a languid, golden-hour rendition of
Duke Ellington's "The Star-Crossed Lovers."
Farnsworth also grabs the spotlight with an unaccompanied drum improvisation, "One for Jimmy Cobb," in which he pays kinetic homage to the legendary
Miles Davis drummer who died in 2020. With
Time to Swing,
Farnsworth has crafted an album that conjures the joyful feeling of friends hanging out and further underlines his reputation as a torchbearer for acoustic modern jazz.