Graham Connah

When this album was recorded in the early '90s, the musicians involved lived and worked in the San Francisco area and had not yet established themselves on a wider stage. Most of them have since become at least somewhat better known, including the leader, who's recorded a pair of well-received albums on Gino Robair's Rastascan label and continued to work around the Bay Area. Connah is solidly grounded in traditional jazz practices; his tunes are rife with unusual turns of melody, harmony, and rhythm. The bandmembers are all fine inside/out players. Standing out are clarinetist Ben Goldberg and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Goldberg's clean (but not too clean) technique and inclination toward the unpredictable serve the music well, as does Wolleson's exuberant ears-wide-open approach to rhythmic interaction. Connah is himself a fine soloist, as witty and sophisticated as his song titles suggest. His compositions are the best thing about the album, however; remindful of Andrew Hill's best work, they integrate collective improvisation and various other avant devices contained within a framework of swing and modal harmonies. Not free jazz per se, it is instead an extremely well-played and often inspired amalgam of modern jazz as it existed in the last decade of the 20th century. ~ Chris Kelsey, All Music Guide