38-year old trumpet/flugelhorn ace Sean Jones wanted the raw, live feel for his seven-track Jazz at the Bistro album which features lively, ebullient performances for both quartet and quintet dispositions.
Art’s Available kicks off proceedings in the noted St Louis jazz haunt where the record was recorded in December 2015 as Jones and his quartet, pianist Orrin Evans, bassist Luques Curtis, drummer Mark Whitfield Jr. get into the spirit of the curiously triumphant piece "I wrote this tune to imagine what it would have sounded like at a gig that Art Blakey might have done with John Coltrane," Jones says in the accompanying publicity.
It’s followed by this writer's favourite track on the album, Lost, Then Found, softly shimmering and devout like an early Miles Davis exercise. Jones and Hogans are particularly lyrical on unison soprano sax-trumpet lines. Indeed Lost, Then Found is like sun glistening on wet tarmac after a summer shower, all muted beauty. It somehow gets funkier, looser when the trumpet takes a break and Evans expands his fingers across the keys. For there are indeed many different accents and tones on this fine album, which has both quintet and quartet performances.
Saxophonist Brian Hogans’ composition, Piscean Dichotomy is an effervescent piece, blissful and blistering too, if such is possible. A straight, loping blues is delivered in The Ungentrified Blues, as though Bessie Smith had come back to life and grabbed a trumpet in her hand. Indeed there is a definite sense of legacy and homage here on this fine live album. mackaevenue.com sean-jones.com
Paddy Kehoe
