The band
Billy Hart assembled for this fine session is remarkable:
John Stubblefield on tenor and soprano saxes,
Mark Feldman on violin,
David Kikoski on piano,
David Fiuczynski on guitar, and
Santi Debriano on bass.
Marc Copland, who produced the album, plays keyboards on tracks five and six. Unorthodox textures abound, thanks to the fruitful juxtaposition of
Feldman's mournful violin,
Fiuczynski's overdriven yet lyrical guitar, and
Stubblefield's soaring saxes.
Hart employs these three melody voices in various combinations, keeping the sound consistently fresh. The tracks do sound somewhat similar, however, tending toward open harmonic structures held together loosely by swing and Latin grooves. Each bandmember contributes one tune, save for
Hart, who contributes two.
Fiuczynski's "Melanos" is the most unpredictable piece, with its screaming guitar solo and its Jeckyl-and-Hyde transitions between abstraction, cheery Latin, and uptempo swing.
Feldman's "Asylum" is also a good deal more unusual than the rest. Of
Hart's compositions, "Amethyst" falls roughly within the enigmatic, ethereal universe of his old band
Quest with
David Liebman and
Richard Beirach, while "Irah" is painted in bolder strokes, with powerful solos by
Feldman and
Fiuczynski. The album ends with an interesting version of
Kikoski's "Dirty Dogs," which graced the pianist's 1989 album
Presage. In short, there's plenty of beautiful music on the album, plenty of representative brilliance from all these fine players, and even a substantial amount of originality and vision.