John McNeil: East Coast Cool

CML call number: CD/JAZZ/McNeil
Ben Ratliff wrote: "[A] band with trumpet, baritone saxophone, bass and drums … has to orient itself either toward or away from Gerry Mulligan's original pianoless quartet, which he formed with Chet Baker in Los Angeles in 1952. The trumpeter John McNeil … uses his new album to imagine a possibility: What if a band with the same instruments as the Mulligan-Baker group played themes with boiled down, contrapuntal lines, in honor of the ones Mulligan wrote, but engaged the bass and drums much more? … Because the musicians with Mr. McNeil … are Allan Chase on baritone saxophone, John Hebert on bass and Matt Wilson on drums, the music can remind you as much of Ornette Coleman's early-60's quartet … as Gerry Mulligan's early-50's one. Mr. McNeil wants to unlock the neat, airy, compressed feeling of the Mulligan quartet. … [T]he wonder of the record is its breezy transparency. Mr. Wilson has a light, bouncing touch … Mr. McNeil sprawls through long, Don Cherry-style improvisations … using a clear, dry, clarion upper register. And Mr. Chase … plays with balance and authority" (New York Times, 1/9/06).