The main reason to obtain
Think Before You Think is the prominently featured tenor sax of
Joe Lovano, who was a year away from recording for Blue Note when the acoustic post-bop/hard bop session was done in 1989. This isn't to take anything away from leader
Bill Stewart -- a competent, swinging drummer -- or his other sidemen on the album: acoustic pianist
Mark Cohen (an admirer of
Bill Evans and
Chick Corea) and the distinguished, risk-taking bassist
Dave Holland. But it is
Lovano's contributions that stand out the most. Whether being cerebral on
Holland's moody "Processional" and the angular "Dewey Said" (
Lovano's ode to saxman
Dewey Redman) or melancholy and remorseful on the standard "Goodbye,"
Lovano never fails to play with soul and conviction. The saxman lays out on
Cohen's impressionistic "Rain," and the piano trio's memorable performance lets us know that this would have been a worthwhile album even if
Lovano hadn't participated. But thankfully, he was around to help make
Think Before You Think (which first came out on the Japanese Jazz city label and was reissued by Evidence in 1998) the decent offering that it is.