RECORD REVIEW

Tougher love

Greg Osby has a way with the unexpected. He’ll surprise you with understatement or shock you with juxtaposition, as much as with energy and sweat. Producer of his own sessions, and working against jazz A&R guidelines, he’ll start a record with a slow tune – atmospheric, almost quiet. The next track might pick up the tempo slightly, but with a more complex arrangement in the melody and order of solos. Then somewhere in the set’s middle, he’ll push the ol’ swing-ometer into the red zone.

An alto sax oracle, Osby stands at the intersection of two traditions – where the metallic avant-garde soul of a John Tchicai meets the ultra-cool cerebrality of a Lee Konitz. And throughout Osby’s music – even when he’s covering someone else’s material – runs the reincarnated spirit of Gil Evans, late-modern master of moods and textures.

So, can Osby surprise us once again? At first glance, The Invisible Hand puts together an unusual lineup of Andrew Hill (piano, Osby’s longtime mentor), Jim Hall (guitar, yes the possessor of the most elegant six-string mind in jazz), Terri Lyne Carrington (drums, still amazing and thoughtful), Gary Thomas (flutes and tenor sax) and Scott Colley (bass). The prospect of Osby, Hill and Hall together – sharing a love of space and understatement wired with muscle – seems too good to be true. But here they are, true and way past good.

The disc starts with a new Hill meditation called "Ashes," moving from Osby’s breathy melody statement to a demonstration by Hall that he’s ready for whatever loveliness a tune has in mind. Then comes a classic reading of the Quincy Jones-Howard Greenfield ballad, "Who Needs Forever," its arrangement recalling the hushed misterioso of Ellington’s "Mood Indigo." Osby is just exquisite here, stepping across the deep harmonic stream on Carrington’s tom-toms and rim shots.

Among other highpoints: an eccentric-to-humorous rendition of "Jitterbug Waltz," Fats Waller’s old-time gift to new thinking; the easy-livin’ nostalgia of "Nature Boy," with Hall’s electric-reverb translation of melody into timelessness; and "Tough Love," on which Hill’s piano manages both to recall Monk and remind us that Osby’s mentor is one of the übermensches of jazz’s older generation.

Of course, there’s a lot more, but the savoring’s for me to know and you to find out.

George Tysh is Metro Times arts editor.