Tag: Orrin Evans

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Phil Freeman’s Burning Ambulance review of Ralph Bowen “Power Play”…

burningambulance.com

Ralph Bowen

2032011

Power Play (Posi-Tone)

by Phil Freeman

Ralph Bowen looks pissed on the cover of Power Play. He looks like a burly dude, and he’s glaring at the camera, holding his saxophone like a weapon, like he’s going to come over there and belt you across the head with it if you don’t stop talking to his woman. He doesn’t even look like a jazz player; he looks like the saxophonist from a bar band in a Walter Hill movie, or a straight-to-DVD Road Housesequel. This is a man you don’t want to shout requests at when he’s on a gig.

Bowen is nothing if not a traditionalist; his thick, muscular tone on the tenor saxophone marks him as a John Coltrane devotee, but he’s indebted to 1950s and very early 1960s Coltrane, before the formation of the so-called “Classic Quartet.” The third track on Power Play, “Two-Line Pass,” is a near-rewrite of “Giant Steps,” with his band—pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Kenny Davis, and drummer Donald Edwards—swinging hard behind him. When he picks up the alto, he plays even longer, more convoluted lines, recalling Branford Marsalis. He can handle a ballad (the sole standard, “My One and Only Love,” is performed in a surprisingly delicate manner, as though you walked into a room and were confronted with a grizzly bear juggling light bulbs), but clearly prefers full-on, “Chasin’ the Trane”-esque charging. When he rises to a shrieking pitch on “The Good Shepherd,” you’ll feel yourself retreating into your chair; in a club, you might well start inching backward toward the door, keeping one eye on Bowen at all times, lest he lunge.

There’s no conflict between Bowen and the rest of the band; they, too, clearly drank deeply of whatever meth-laced potion was left lying around the studio the day this disc was recorded. “Bella Firenze” provides an excellent showcase for them all, as Bowen disappears early on and they become a lithe, agile piano trio that could easily hold a listener’s attention on its own. When he reappears, of course, they bring the hammer down again, pianist Evans in particular shifting from McCoy Tyner-esque delicacy to a much more forceful attack, as though he’s put on gloves with lead dust in the fingers. Drummer Edwards is also capable of a light touch, but on this track and the album as a whole, clearly prefers to drop bombs as though he’s battling the ghost of Max Roach in his head. Astonishingly, “Bella Firenze” runs nearly eight and a half minutes and ends with a fade—the full version would be something to hear.

The album’s low point is definitely the ballad “Jessica.” It features Bowen on the soprano saxophone, an instrument that should be banned on general principle, and/but one that definitely has no place in the arsenal of such a forceful, blustery player. And (after a merciful reprieve, in the form of the swinging “Walleye Jigging”) he does it again on the album’s final cut, “A Solar Romance.” There’s a lot of really good music on Power Play, but those two songs distract from the retro-minded, hard-swinging mood set on the rest of the disc, and should probably have been omitted. Without them, you’ve got a terrific seven-track, 42-minute album that could easily have been released on Blue Note in 1960. Check this one out and see if you don’t agree.

 

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Bill Milkowski review of Tarbaby “The End of Fear” from the March issue of JazzTimes…

jazztimes.com

Tarbaby
The End of Fear
Posi-Tone

By Bill Milkowski

A followup to 2009’s self-titled debut, The End of Fearhas the core trio of pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits still intact. Saxophonist Stacy Dillard is gone and honorary member J.D. Allen, a bona fide tenor titan for these times, fills in on a few tracks. Alto saxophonist Oliver Lake and trumpeter Nicholas Payton help punch up the cutting-edge proceedings on a few select tracks, including covers of Sam Rivers’ rambunctious “Unity” and Andrew Hill’s probing polyrhythmic puzzle “Tough Love.” Payton burns white-hot on the tumultuous group improv “Heads” (featuring spoken-word samples of Duke Ellington and Malcolm X), while Lake wails with authority on his own edgy “November ’80” and the other group improv, “Tails.”

From the angular and adventurous opener, “E-Math,” with its multilayered spoken-word textures on top, to interpretations of the Bad Brains’ hardcore anthem “Sailin’ On,” Fats Waller’s poignant ballad “Lonesome Me” (a beautiful tenor feature for Allen) and Paul Motian’s Zen-like rubato masterpiece “Abacus,” the variety couldn’t get any wider here. Payton turns in a stirring performance on Waits’ dramatic “Hesitation,” a dirgelike number that builds to a cathartic crescendo before resolving on an uplifting gospel-tinged note. Waits, ever the creative colorist and inveterate swinger with sticks, brushes and mallets, makes this music breathe with his choices of what he plays and doesn’t play. Revis, who alternately grooves and skronks on upright, delivers an uncommonly lyrical reading of “Abacus” on top of some sparse, crystalline piano accompaniment by Evans, who is a marvel throughout and a vastly underrated player in general.

A bit more on the fringe than anything recorded by Jason Moran’s Bandwagon, Waits’ other group, Tarbaby’s sophomore outing is one daring, genre-defying ride by an uncannily flexible crew of likeminded musical renegades.

 

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Bruce Lindsay’s AAJ review for Ralph Bowen “Power Play”….

www.allaboutjazz.com

With over 20 years experience as a recording artist and composer, saxophonist Ralph Bowen has a mastery of straight-ahead jazz that is immediately apparent on Power Play, his third album for the Posi-Tone label. Bowen’s first two Posi-Tone releases, 2009’s Dedicated and 2010’sDue Reverence were quintet recordings. For Power Play, he trims down to an all-new quartet lineup, but it still swings.

On the album’s opener, “K. D.’s Blues,” Bowen jumps straight in with a hard-edged tenor riff that soon develops into a powerful and melodic solo. Drummer Donald Edwards and bassist Kenny Davis, who was Bowen’s band mate for a few years in the ’80s group Out Of The Blue, also impress from the off, creating a driving rhythm that characterizes much of the recording.

Pianist Orrin Evans matches Bowen solo for solo across Power Play. On the snaky “Drumheller Valley,” Evans delivers the opening riff with confidence, while his beautifully varied solo has a soulful vibe which contrasts well with Bowen’s more bop-ish approach. He’s equally stylish when he joins Davis and Edwards to underpin Bowen’s lead playing. It’s Bowen’s warm and lyrical playing that’s to the fore on Guy Wood’s standard, “My One And Only Love” but the performance is a genuine quartet affair, with the rhythm players’ relaxed, and relaxing, approach central to the mood of the song.

While Bowen’s tenor saxophone might be the most prominent instrument on the album—it’s also the instrument of choice for both of the CD’s cover photos—he delivers some of his finest playing, with soprano, on his lovely ballads “Jessica” and “A Solar Romance.”

Power Play is an apposite title: for saxophonist Ralph Bowen is certainly one of the most powerful players in contemporary jazz. But power alone is seldom, if ever, enough, and Bowen combines power with exceptional control, feeling and tone. The rest of the quartet shares Bowen’s characteristics, ensuring that this collection of tunes is constantly rewarding.

 

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Here’s a new All About Jazz feature article about Posi-Tone Records!!!

www.allaboutjazz.com

When Posi-Tone Records founder Marc Free was growing up, he looked forward to each new record purchase, cherishing the cover artwork, devouring the liner notes and most of all, feasting on the music. He came to love the music and albums issued by iconic labels such as Blue Note and Impulse!, knowing that even if he hadn’t heard of the artist, it was likely to be a quality recording by a great musician.

And when Free launched Posi-Tone in 1994, he made those remembrances his business plan.

“I hadn’t intended it; it wasn’t my dream,” says Free of the company’s founding. “It was kind of an outgrowth of other things.”

Technically, he started his record-producing career when he built a studio in his mother’s house, ala Rudy Van Gelder, the Blue Note engineering master whose work set the standard for sound and quality in the 1950s. Free had even hoped to make a documentary on Van Gelder at one point, conducting interviews and gathering research, but the project ultimately fell apart.

“He didn’t think a documentary was the right way to tell the story and he never gave me the permission to do it,” says Free.

A jazz guitarist, Free used his studio space to record friends and other musicians whose music he enjoyed. A chance to record multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers performing at Los Angeles’ Jazz Bakery in 2002 led to a decision to turn the underground label into a “real business.”

“We try to make records we want to listen to,” he says.

At a time many labels struggle to find a niche, Posi-Tone has emerged with a solid lineup of well-crafted recordings, packaged in distinctive cardboard sleeves. Rather than focus on a particular genre of music, Posi-Tone’s stable of artists are picked by Free and partner/engineer Nick O’Toole.

“What we decided to do was go out to New York three or four times per year to scout for talent,” Free says. “That’s where the musicians who are more serious about making a career in jazz are.”

When a potential Posi-Tone artist is found, Free says the label will record them in a New York studio, such as Acoustic Recording Brooklyn or System 2 studios, also in Brooklyn. The masters are then taken to Los Angeles for post-production work.

This method has connected the label to a diverse collection of musicians, including saxophonist Sarah Manning, trombonist Alan Ferber and trumpeter Jim Rotondi. Free notes he doesn’t sign artists to long-term deals, and allows them to retain all of the publishing rights to their music.

“I can’t tell you how many people in the recording business told me I was crazy,” he says. “[One record company executive] said, ‘your roster of artists and publishing rights is what you build your business on.’ And I said, ‘No, my label’s reputation is what I’m building my business on.'”

Which, Free says, strikes at the biggest hurdle facing new artists and new labels in today’s marketplace: reissues. A quick look at the upcoming releases page on AAJ shows a deluge of reissued jazz recordings every month, with new CDs which repackage and reissue works by everyone from bandleader Artie Shaw to saxophonist Zoot Sims. This means a young artist doesn’t only have to compete with other musicians of today, but those from the last 80 years as well.

“I have a hard time competing with John Coltrane when he’s got 60 years of marketing behind him,” Free says.

The problem, as Free sees it, is the copyright act of 1978, which extended the time before the rights to musical compositions pass into public domain from 28 to 75 years. This meant the recording companies who owned the rights to music and recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s can continue to produce and sell the music for years. Hence the belief that building the back catalogue is the key to a label’s survival.

“All of us are struggling with these issues all the time,” says Free.

Another issue confronting labels concerns digital distribution: Free is sticking to emphasizing direct sales of physical CDs because he says the economics just don’t work with downloads. He says the average online customer won’t download a full CD, reducing the revenue to the label (and artist) to a fraction of what CDs net. Consequently, he says he would need to sell to 14 online customers to realize what he can earn for one CD sale.

“The music isn’t in any danger, but the record labels making recordings may well be,” Free says. He’s marketing the company’s releases through Amazon, the label’s website and with distributors outside the United States. “We’re seeing tremendous response to our efforts.”

Summing his philosophy up, Free says: “The answer is to make more and better records.

“We’re good for jazz, we’re good for business and we make good records.”

Selected Posi-Tone releases

Doug Webb
Midnight
2010

 

 

 

Hooking up with bassist Stanley Clarke and keyboard player Larry Goldings for a set of sweetly swinging chestnuts has saxophonist Webb playing in fine form. Although a session veteran, this is Webb’s first release as a headliner and it gives him a chance to stand out. Webb plays with smooth tone and uses the full range of his tenor, which works well on ballads such as “I’ll Be Around” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Webb builds his solos skillfully and is matched by the quality of Clarke’s and Goldings’ turns. Clarke offers a deep acoustic bass sound throughout, getting some amazingly legato notes that fill the quartet’s sound.

Sarah Manning
Dandelion Clock
2010

The demure face looking up from the cover of Dandelion Clock contrasts Manning’s often aggressive, experimental style, as she plays over a collection of original tunes and two covers, Michel Legrand‘s “The Windmills of Your Mind” and “The Peacocks” by Jimmy Rowles.

Her compositions offer enough harmonic room for Manning to craft exploring solos, often using long runs that seem to end in question marks. Never one to settle for an easy note choice when there’s a more interesting one available, her solos soar in such post-bop ballads as “Marbles” and “Habersham Street.”

Orrin Evans
Faith in Action
2010

Evans has been growing into a major figure in jazz piano, thanks to releases as strong as his 2010 release in tribute to saxophonist Bobby Watson. Combining his own compositions and five by Watson, Evans plays smoothly through oblique runs and blues turns on solos, and lets his accompanists—which include bassist Luques Curtis and drummers Nasheet Waits, Rocky Bryant and Gene Jackson—provide a solid base for his work.

Watson’s “Appointment in Milano” features a pounding bottom underneath Evans’ swift runs, which alternate between sweet scales and modal triplets. The delightful “Beattitudes,” another Watson gem, combines an airy intro with a gentle melody. Musicians know it takes more to keep a ballad moving than a burning up-tempo number, and Evans shows his real chops on this one.

Brandon Wright
Boiling Point
2010

Saxophonist Wright is clearly a student of the 1960s, and these eight tunes—including five original compositions—show he learned well. This is a disc fans of swinging, smoky jazz will favor. Wright never overplays and fits in pianist David Kikoski‘s playing marvelously. Case in point, the interplay on Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That Rainy Day.” With Kikoski comping sweetly, Wright gets just enough blues to keep his solo emotional without going saccharine. On the other side of the coin, the interplay between Wright, Kikoski and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin at the crescendo near the end of the samba-based “Castaway” is a real treat. All are playing hard but not over each other.

Jim Rotondi
1000 Rainbows
2010

Rotondi’s smooth chops and smart tune selection make this a delicious outing. Playing alongside a capable four-piece band, including Joe Locke on vibes, Danny Grissett on piano, bassist Barak Mori and Bill Stewart on drums, Rotondi shines on his compositions “Bizzaro World,” “One for Felix” and “Not Like This,” a beautiful ballad duet with Locke.

 

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Mark Corroto’s insightful AAJ review for Ralph Bowen “Power Play”….

www.allaboutjazz.com

The inscription on saxophonist Ralph Bowen’s business card probably should read “solid citizen,” because his post-bop jazz conception has always been steadfast and dependable. With Power Play, he only adds to his stalwart reputation.

Together with bassist Kenny Davis, Bowen was picked, in the mid-1980s, to spearhead the return of Blue Note Records in the all-star band Out Of The Blue. Along with the likes of Michael Philip Mossman, Kenny Garrett, andRalph Peterson, OTB revived the classic post-bop sound. Bowen continued that language with discs from Criss Cross and his previous releases, Due Reverence (2010) and Dedicated (2009), with this century’s keeper of the flame, Posi-Tone Records.

On this release Bowen tackles eight originals and one standard. With the choice not to share the frontline with another horn, he carries the session on some very broad shoulders. He opens with “K.D.’s Blues,” a spirited and animated groove vehicle that captures the essence of his experience playing with Horace Silver, or with bluesy organ bands in Philadelphia.

Spending the majority of the disc on tenor, he does switch to soprano for the balladic “Jessica” and “A Solar Romance.” Where his tenor challenges all comers, his soprano playing is much softer, and his sympathetic sound floats, with no hint of the twitchiness the straight horn is apt to have.

As the title notes, this disc is about the urge and compression of a connected quartet working through some muscular pieces. The band flexes its collective muscle on “The Good Shepherd,” and bends intricate patterns on “Two-Line Pass.” Bowen seems to want to pack this outing with pieces that warrant standing ovations. He certainly does with his tribute to the two Johns, covering “My One And Only Love” straight from John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (Impulse!, 1963) , by playing both Johns’ parts with the sincerest and most flattering imitation.

 

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Lucid Culture weighs in on Ralph Bowen “Power Play”….

lucidculture.wordpress.com

Ralph Bowen’s Power Play: A Clinic in Melody

It looks like we have our first classic of the year. On the cover of his new album Power Play, saxophonist Ralph Bowen stands in an alley, holding his sax more like a goalie than a winger. But the title is absolutely spot-on. This is one of those albums that musicians will hear and will immediately want to play along to. Yet ironically, non-musicians will probably enjoy this the most because they can just relax and enjoy it for what it is rather than having to figure out what Bowen is doing. Which actually isn’t all that difficult, most of the time, other than the most rapidfire passages (which will take lots of practice if you want to do them with the same kind of soul and style), because melody is simple. It lingers. As does this album.

If you play, this is a clinic in the kind of things you could be doing, and maybe should be doing. Bowen’s sense of melody is stunning, and yet completely unpredictable. He alternates effortlessly between scales and modes, shows off some wickedly blistering speed in places yet only when he really has to drive a point home. The closest comparison is probably Joshua Redman, but Bowen’s attack is lighter and more crystalline, and that contrasts, sometimes mightily, with the intensity of the tunes. He plays both tenor and alto here and is equally compelling either way. It’s hard-hitting, purposeful and tuneful beyond belief, and it elevates the crew behind him. Donald Edwards’ no-nonsense drums team up withKenny Davis’ crisp, propulsive bass, along with Orrin Evans’ piano. About Evans, what else is there to say – everything he touches lately turns into magic (have you heard his Tarbaby album from last year? Get the damn thing!), and this is yet another example.

They don’t waste time getting started with an aggressive, matter-of-fact swing blues, which sets up an immediate contrast with the gorgeous, richly countermelodic Drumheller Valley, its intro with echoes of Brubeck, Evans kicking in a majestically chordal solo followed by an artfully divergent passage into Bowen’s lusciously ominous spirals. Two-Line Pass – a highway reference, maybe? – is relentless, Evans again matching the understated overdrive of Bowen’s restless bustle. Evans goes into rippling Americana-via-Brubeck on The Good Shepherd, a wickedly catchy modal number; Bowen’s long, bumpy descent out of the clouds on the warmly thoughtful swing tune Bella Firenze is arguably the high point of the whole album. Although on second thought that could be his big crescendo out, on alto, on the almost deviously nonchalant blues ballad Jessica, which follows it.

Walleye Jigging is a tongue-in-cheek lazy afternoon tableau complete with an expansive cocktail piano solo and an extended interlude in three before reverting to relaxed, syncopated swing. The album ends with A Solar Romance, a gently optimistic ballad that turns dark in seconds and gives Bowen the chance to work the suspense for all it’s worth, all the way to a very uneasy resolution. The lone cover here is My One and Only Love, where the bass and piano give Bowen plenty of room for what’s basically an expansive (ok, eight-minute) solo that somehow manages not to be boring. It’s only February, but you’ll see this on our best albums of 2011 list. It’s out now on Posi-Tone.

 

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Richard Kamins Step Tempest review of Ralph Bowen “Power Play”….

steptempest.blogspot.com

Power Play – Ralph Bowen (Posi-Tone Records) -Tenor saxophonist/composer came out of Canada in the mid-1980s to study in the United States and first came to critical notice as a member of the Blue Note labels hand-picked ensemble of “young lions” known as Out of the Blue. That group featured, among others, alto saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassist Bob Hurst and drummer Ralph Peterson.  Bowen went on to work with pianists Michel Camilo, Hank Jones and Horace Silver as well as vocalist Shirley Scott and bassist Charles Fambrough.
This release, his 3rd for Posi-Tone, features the fine piano work of long-time friend Orrin Evans, bassist Kenny Davis and drummerDonald Edwards.  Evans’ tolling McCoy Tyner-like chords give great power to “Drumheller Valley” as does Edwards’ powerful drumming.  Bowen starts his solo (after a fine one from Evans) quietly but soon rides the roiling rhythm section to impressive heights.  “Two-Line Pass” has the speed of a hockey game in the flying bass lines of Davis – Bowen blazes a mighty trail through the piano chords, having fun interacting with the ensemble.  Evans takes his own joy ride with Edwards supplying the high-octane percussive push.
Bowen wisely plays “My One and Only Love” as the pretty ballad it is, staying close to the melody and chord changes for his handsome solo.  There is a sense of joy in his solo, a happiness that carries through the entire piece.
Other highlights include the handsome uptempo ballad “Bella Firenze” with an Evans solo that is relaxed and “swinging” at the same time and an energetic give-and-take featuring Bowen and Edwards (which ends on a fadeout.)  “Walleye Jigging” has a pleasing melody played over shifting tempos that opens to an understated piano solo before Bowen and Edwards have more strong interaction. Bowen’s lithe and gentle soprano saxophone is featured on the final track, “A Solar Romance.”  Take the time to listen to Davis’s long tones on the bass and Edward’s exemplary work on the cymbals as well as Evans’ impressionistic piano (somewhat reminiscent of another, older, Evans – Bill.)
“Power Play” does have its share of powerful playing but there is also a goodly amount of dynamic variation from track to track.  What does not change throughout the program is the fine musicianship and the excellent interplay.  Some might call Bowen’s approach “modern hard bop” – call “honest good music” that’s well played and you won’t go wrong.  For more information, go to www.ralphbowen.comor www.posi-tone.com.
Here’s the opening track, “K.D’s Blues” courtesy of Posi-Tone Records and IODA Promonet:
K.D.’s Blues (mp3)

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Dan Bilawsky’s AAJ review of Ralph Bowen “Power Play”…..

www.allaboutjazz.com

Saxophonist Ralph Bowen has always been an original, despite being tagged as one of the neo-traditionalist young lions of the ’80s. A quarter century has gone by since Bowen came to semi-prominence as a member of Out Of The Blue, yet this mega-talent still manages to fly just under the radar, despite impressive dates like this one.

Power Play is a sharp departure from Bowen’s previous Posi-Tone albums, which were built on an all-star guitar-bass-drums rhythm section, and placed trumpeter Sean Jones next to Bowen on the frontline. For this, his third record for the label, Bowen is the lone horn player and he enlists pianist (and label mate) Orrin Evans to take the role of harbinger of harmony previously held by guitarist Adam Rogers.

The program is all Bowen-based material, save for a classy take on “My One And Only Love,” and the saxophonist often shares the spotlight with Evans. Both men insert some chromatic lines into their soloing on “K.D.’s Blues,” but they take two very different approaches beyond that point. Bowen becomes more rhythmically frantic and fearsome after his brief, descending chromatic caper, while Evans uses his turn to launch into bluesy statements. “Drumheller Valley” shifts the focus to Evans at first, but Bowen delivers some playfully dancing work, atop bassist and former Out Of The Blue band mate Kenny Davis‘ lines, that deserves mention. The saxophonist then reclaims his position in the drivers’ seat, delivering swooping melody lines (“The Good Shepherd”) and sweet seduction (“Solar Romance”) with equal skill and measure.

Davis and drummer Donald Edwards serve as support crew, rather than soloists, on the majority of the album, but both make invaluable contributions to the music. Edwards provides solid swing of all stripes and colors, from fast and driving to slow and loose, and he drives “Walleye Jigging” with his choppy, shifting cymbal work. The drummer briefly gets an opportunity to cut loose over a vamping pattern on this track, but he proves to be more impressive when trading twelve-bar solos on “Two-Line Pass.” Davis demonstrates a plucky presence when it counts, but his lines are rounded out for maximum support on the softer material. While he’s clearly the most introverted artist on the album, his strong solo skills steal the show on “Jessica.”

Power Play, with its mixture of driving, thought-provoking material and gentler journeys, demonstrates that power manifests itself in different ways, and remains ever-present within the work of saxophonist Ralph Bowen.

 

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With an early new year gift, Clifford Allen provides a ton of coverage for Posi-Tone on his amazing Ni Kantu blog….

cliffordallen.blogspot.com

Briefly Reviewed: Four on Posi-Tone Records
As the year draws to a close, with most holidays celebrated and top-ten lists submitted, the hope is that space has been left for tastes to grow and expand with new musical horizons and relationships to form over the coming twelve months. One challenge that I’ve had – and expressed here on a few occasions – is where dyed-in-the-wool jazz music fits into all of this. Despite an avowed love for historical jazz recordings as well as enjoying new music in the idiom, nevertheless the bug of challenge bites and I find myself questioning the current place of making refined statements within a timeworn linguistic structure (not that the same can’t be said for people working in the ‘free’ or avant-garde idioms).

Questioning, one must remember, doesn’t necessarily mean that a musical statement isn’t valid or engaging; rather, questioning something is a dynamic engagement with a thing or a concept. I can still find myself interested in and moved by music in the tradition while at the same time inquiring of that music’s function or value. Not coincidentally, the contemporary jazz that I find the most interesting is that which questions (in-) itself and for which expressive and structural boundaries are pushed at, even if only slightly.

Los Angeles’ Posi-Tone is one of the labels keeping close to a vision of modern, straight-ahead jazz that, while not particularly rough around the edges, remains full of surprises and engagement. Among their nearly fifty releases are discs by multi-instrumentalist and improvising composer Sam Rivers, trumpeter-composer Jim Rotondi, trombonist-composer Steve Davis (the New Jazz Composers Octet, etc.) and tenorman-composer Wayne Escoffery, alongside lesser-known or up-and-coming artists and ensembles. Not every title in their deep catalog is a winner, but in the several months that I’ve had to familiarize myself with a selection of their releases, there are a number which stick out.

Organist Jared Gold is one player whose work is impressive, drawing on the playing of such seminal figures as Larry Young and John Patton for his harmonic choices, which are often salty and slightly dissonant. On Out of Line, his third disc for Posi-Tone, Gold is joined by guitarist Dave Stryker, drummer Mark Ferber and tenorman Chris Cheek on six originals and three covers. It’s a fairly strong statement to open one’s set with a cover of a tune like Hank Mobley’s “An Aperitif” (which appeared on 1967’s Thinking of Home, first issued in 1980). Cheek’s flinty, cutting tone meshes well with Gold’s stopps-pulled jounce and steaming modal clamber, propelled by a loose stoke from guitar and drums.

Minus tenor, the trio settles into an easy lope for “Preachin’,” which despite missing hard-toned fire (and not that Cheek is particularly ‘out,’ but his phrasing and projection are unequivocally weighty), nevertheless sports fine grit and ebullience. Stevie Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” has openness to its groove, though one does get the feeling that Ferber’s drums could have an external push to them. His dustily tasteful propulsion/carpet is clearly part of the axis on which chunks of electric grease turn, so a little more recorded presence could balance the proceedings. There’s pregnant ballpark goo to Gold’s tone on “It Is Well,” mostly a vehicle for organ, tenor and barely-there brushes, with Cheek’s cottony minor explosions providing an interesting counter to the leader’s grinding evocations. In all, Out of Line is a solid disc with some fine grease and expansive playing, but could have been better served with a little more realization of its “in the red” qualities.

Tarbaby (winner of the “most charged band name award”) is a collective made up of drummer Nasheet Waits, bassist Eric Revis and pianist Orrin Evans, which formerly also included saxophonists Stacy Dillard and J.D. Allen. On the group’s second disc and first for Posi-Tone, The End of Fear, Allen is present as a “guest” along with altoist Oliver Lake and trumpeter Nicholas Payton. Evans has a kaleidoscopic approach to the tradition, heavily gospelized but also florid, ethereal and rhythmically crepuscular. The presence of Revis and Waits – along with the odd bits of studio chatter and samples – might seem to nod in the direction of Bandwagon redux, but there really isn’t much basis to compare Evans with Jason Moran. The trio moves deftly through “Brews,” a shifting array of reflections and expressions of the piano-trio, never losing its step or becoming overly flashy. That’s an island of pure form in a disc that does lean on conceptualism a bit – mostly clear in the use of sound-bites to shape the area around forays into dissonance like “Heads.” One would hope that they believe their music can stand on its own, free or inside, but attaching snatches of verbiage seems to unseat what otherwise is honest group playing.

“Jena 6” is pointillist, full of gradient shifts and subtle turns in its shortish length – like much of the music here, a wide range of colors and shapes are worked into and out of tracks that mostly hover around five minutes. This disc is one of the more adventurous recordings to feature Payton, and he gets a full seven minutes to stretch out around alternately lush and thrashing piano, bass, and percussion on “Hesitation.” Revis’ muscular arco, echoing an interest in players like Henry Grimes, Steve Tintweiss and William Parker, is quite well represented, and his throaty pluck helps to bolster the questing lilt at the heart of “Tough Love,” which compositionally (if not pianistically) recalls Andrew Hill. At times, one might wish that Tarbaby stretched the performances a bit lengthwise and shrunk their reliance on snatches of verbiage intended to shape our appreciation of the music’s aesthetic and social weight. Nevertheless, concision never really hurt expressive actualization.

Tenor saxophonist Brandon Wright and alto saxophonist Jacám Manricks lead two strong small-group dates recently waxed for Posi-Tone; the former with Boiling Point and the latter with Trigonometry. Wright’s session features venerable drummer Matt Wilson alongside pianist David Kikoski, bassist Hans Glawischning and trumpeter Alex Sipiagin. Wright has worked with the Mingus Big Band, Maria Schneider Orchestra and Chico O’Farrill, among others. A mix of originals and standards, Boiling Point opens strongly with “Free Man,” its bright head arrangement reminiscent of incisive Blue Note 1960s dates, and something about the tune and the front line nods toward the Freddie Hubbard/Wayne Shorter team. Wright himself is a rough-and-tumble hardbop tenorman, drawing from the school of tenor playing exemplified by Joe Henderson, Tyrone Washington, Sam Rivers, Alan Skidmore and their brethren, buoyed perfectly by a hard charging rhythm section. Though on the surface such a tune can easily fall into the “revivalist bag” (and it does), one forgets comparisons as “Free Man” rockets forward. Filmic lyricism imbues the following “Drift,” explored further in Kikoski’s opening, Wynton Kelly-like cadenza to “Odd Man Out,” which moves into odd-interval Shorterish lilt once the head comes around. Wright’s husky and sandblasted tone, coupled with turns of phrase that move well outside of cookie-cutter territory, mark him as one of those rare products of jazz education (U-Mich., U-Miami) willing to actually “search” within the idiom. One can’t say enough about the importance of that impulse, as well as the presence of inventive and dynamic sidemen, making Boiling Point feel like a “band” effort.

Already a busy figure on the New York scene, Manricks is going forward with young, semi-free innovators like drummer Tyshawn Sorey and pianist Jacob Sacks to support his larger-form compositional efforts (heard on Labyrinth, available here). Trigonometry is a quirky small-group date with pianist Gary Versace, drummer Obed Calvaire and bassist Joe Martin, with trombonist Alan Ferber and trumpeter Scott Wendholt guesting on three of the disc’s ten tracks (all are originals save for a cover of Eric Dolphy’s “Miss Ann”). On the latter track, Manricks is supported only by bass and drums, moving from the loquacious theme to a soft burble and gooey cry, with odd flurried warmth to his collected tones. Some of Manricks’ lines seem like those of a classical saxophonist, but their movement is bop-informed, like a weird update to Lee Konitz’ Motion. It’s no surprise that Dolphy would be an important influence – not necessarily because both are altoists, but because Manricks is also interested in broader concepts of organization, and has employed lush orchestral arrangements to his compositions in some intriguing ways. That lushness comes through on the sextet piece “Nucleus,” which if it nods in the direction of Gil Evans, does so in simpler knots, perhaps a little more on the Graham Collier side of things. The leader’s curlicues occupy a wholly immediate world, while chordal backing keeps Manricks’ arrangements hovering in the air. “Mood Swing” is a particularly fine feature for Versace’s darting classicism as a partial framework for the altoist’s lateral sketches, implications of dark grandeur from the composer’s horn. With two fine discs under his belt, as both a composer and improviser Jacám Manricks is a player to watch, questioning the nature of his art while still holding fast to tradition.