Another auspicious composer-performer from the Manhattan School of Music (he's a class of 2001 alumnus), trombonist Ryan Keberle has fashioned a lineup that, in addition to the standard piano-bass-drums rhythm section, features a "second quartet" of tuba, trumpet, French horn and second trombone. Incorporating the calisthenic stair-stepping of bebop, a smidgen of the splat-and-slide of New Orleans and Kansas City swing, and, most of all, the creamy, dove-tailing orchestrations of "Third Stream" music, he makes more supple use of sonorous, low-end jazz brass than perhaps anyone on the scene — especially midtempo numbers featuring the trombone.

The influence of Keberle's memberships in the intrepid big bands led by Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue are undeniably a factor, but don't discount the trombonist's own taste, talent and big-eared curiosity. The three covers here, from Ellington (the blues "I Like The Sunrise"), Gershwin ("Our Love is Here To Stay") and Lennon-McCartney ("Mother Nature's Sun") are all gentle songs with round, buffered melodies perfectly suited to Keberle's double quartet design. And his seven originals neatly balance the tapestry of through composition and the spike and bulbous spunk of big-horn solos. (The desolate but not so sad "Early Mourning" and the multi-textured "Coolant" are… read more »