Reviews

Trumpeter Ellis ostensibly retired from playing music several decades ago to work as a piano retailer in Philadelphia. He’s back and has assembled one incredible NYC-based backup band of tenor saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Eddie Gomez, and drummer Al Foster. It’s mostly the fabulous Edward Simon on piano, but Ron Thomas shows on two cuts, Michael Brecker makes two cameos on tenor sax, and there’s a big-band track. Ellis has a solid if unspectacular tone, rarely stretching harmonic boundaries or pushing ultra-melodic nuance, and the style is neo-bop contemporary jazz, all originals of the leader. Much of the music has not only a dark cast but similarly repeated stances. “Amor, Amor” and “Lost Love” are both muted trumpet-led, tenor-followed ballads with a deep modal piano buoying Potter’s second line. “Princess Fizzywater Song” and “Enigma” (with Thomas) are modified, bright modern samba jazz tunes with unison trumpet/tenor melodies, the latter tacking on a free-to-tango march coda tag spiced by bass clarinetist Ron Reuben. The booming three-note bass of Gomez sets off the versatile veteran drummer into rambling shuffle and four repeated measures of hard swing during the boppish “Mr. Al Foster” (with Thomas), while “Little Rey” is a hopeful, deliberate contempo-waltz à la “A Child Is Born.” The two tunes with Michael Brecker sans Potter have the leader and tenorman trading lines on this dark ballad for Miles Davis supported by an ostinato two-note/same-note bass anchor, while the Afro-Cuban mambo “One for Diz” has the 13-piece big band starting with the smaller sextet then expanding with lots of Dennis DeBlasio’s baritone sax, Simon’s potent montuno, and then fading prematurely during an Ellis solo. Why? This recording is not bad at all, as Ellis can rarely go wrong with the top-notch “Pro’s From Dover” he contracted to help on this promising set of modern jazz.