Moving Forward, Standing Still, flutist Jamie Baum’s third disc, showcases her ambitious writing for a state-of-the-art septet. With Doug Yates the sole saxophone (and even he spends much of his time on bass clarinet) the group has a more plangent, less heavy sound than the usual sax-dominated lineups. The writing has a cool 1960s Hancock/Shorter/Miles vibe filtered through modern classical music: Baum draws on The Rite of Spring in “All Roads Lead to You” and – of course! – “Spring,” punningly names a piece “Bar Talk,” and pays homage to Ives with “Central Park.” It’s a well-named album: Baum’s music finds an intriguing balance between motion and suspension, between the smoothly driving grooves laid down by Drew Gress and Jeff Hirshfield and the cool, ambiguous, almost suspended feel of the horn charts and of George Colligan’s laconic comping on piano and Rhodes. At times you could mistake the results for Dave Douglas’s In Our Lifetime sextet, though with flute added to the mix. The leader’s low, full sound (on both regular and alto flutes) is never stereotypically pretty, and while she doesn’t make use of Newton/Kirk-style multiphonics she does beef up the sound at one point with discreet electronics. It’s a great band she’s put together, too, and Baum lets everyone stretch out – she wisely avoids a quick succession of solos in favour of carefully built features. (The exception is the closer, a fast “Rivington Street Blues” which features a relay-race among horns and piano.) Though I find the disc’s resemblances to Douglas’s work at times distracting, that’s my only reservation about an accomplished and enjoyable disc.

In the 1990s pianist Heather Bennett was part of the Austin, Texas jazz scene, before she moved to New York; on Suite Talk she gives expression to these two perspectives through a pair of complementary musical suites. The four-part Texas Suite begins with a note of clear-eyed hope and tenderness in “Mustangs,” before it progressively darkens with “Cacti” and the polymorphous waltz “Blue Bonnet”; the suite resolves itself with the bright and vigorous “Cadillac Roundup.” Each piece is based on the same 16-bar theme, though Bennett transforms it sufficiently each time that it’s surprisingly hard to spot in its various guises. The recurrence of the bittersweet eight-bar theme of New York Suite (“Silent Witness,” “’Nite Awl,” “Giddy Down,” “Falling,” “Rattlesnake Dance”) is more immediately audible; Bennett’s variations range from the Shorterish waltztime of “Falling” to “Rattlesnake Dance”’s pulsing 7/4 groove. Rather than programming the suites in their original order, Bennett has decided to scramble them together on the album, giving it a greater variety of mood and tone; she also includes several other pieces, including the striking “Taps for A. D. Manion,” a heartfelt elegy for the late drummer (which Billy Hart sits out).

As a soloist Bennett is capable but not outstanding: her rhythmic placement is a bit off, and her phrasing is at times curiously broken. Her improvisation on “’Nite Awl,” for instance, is a succession of disconnected ideas not followed-through on – it sounds rather like a Herbie Hancock imitation constantly breaking down after a bar or two. I don’t mind the flaws – they are if anything a welcome contrast to the slickness and machine precision of a lot of mainstream jazz piano – but do wish Bennett were a little more forceful on occasion. But it’s hard to quibble too much, given that the band’s an excellent one – Rick Margitza, Bill Mobley, Rufus Reid and Billy Hart all do her proud – and that Bennett’s tunes give them plenty to chew on.

Pure Imagination is the debut of Brian Cashwell, a Cincinnati-based pianist in his mid-30s who began as a classical musician before deciding he was more strongly attracted to jazz. A little googling (the secret weapon of the reviewer) turned up Cashwell’s choice of three desert-island discs: Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, and – surprise! – Blossom Dearie’s Once Upon a Summertime. I suspect his approach to the keyboard owes something to Blossom’s example – the calm delicacy of his delivery; his preference for shapely, unforced melodic contours; and his regard for both the melody and lyrics of a standard, even when the lyrics remain unsung. It’s a surprise to learn that Cashwell only turned to composing recently: “I rarely thought about writing my own music because of the sheer volume of wonderful compositions that already exist, and I wondered why I needed to write music to add to this already colossal oeuvre. . . . I started to compose my own tunes, not so much as a way to get into the ‘history books,’ but as a way of discovering who I am as a musician.” His first piece, the spry waltz “Glad It’s You,” written in June 2003, is included here, along with six others, and the composer’s sense of quiet self-discovery still clings to them. There are also thoughtful arrangements of the Menuet from Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” Loesser’s “I’ve Never Been in Love Before,” the Bricusse/Newman tune “Pure Imagination” (from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) and Mancini’s “Two for the Road.” Though Pure Imagination is too discreet to stand out from the crowded field of mainstream piano-trio discs, it’s still gratifying music, never impersonal or glib.

Nate Dorward

Cadence, January 2005