Adam Rogers Quintet: Allegory

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Nate Chinen wrote in the New York Times: "The guitarist Adam Rogers specializes in a turbocharged, sleekly designed, ultimately armored brand of postbop. His compositions, with their harmonic and rhythmic feints, can suggest complex spring-loaded devices. His playing, skillful to the point of superfluity, can impart a similarly mechanical feel. There are bolts of daring and imagination in his enterprise, but not a shred of vulnerability and only traces of warmth. None of this closes off the possibility of good music, as Mr. Rogers periodically proved on Tuesday night, in his debut as a leader at the Village Vanguard. … Mr. Rogers played two songs apiece from his first album, 'Art of the Invisible,' and his second, 'Allegory.' As on both of those records, which were issued by the Dutch label Criss Cross, he featured the articulate pianist Edward Simon and the attentive bassist Scott Colley. … Mr. Rogers presented … a modal polyrhythmic waltz, in the vein of the John Coltrane Quartet. Because that song, 'Phyrigia,' provoked some searching actions from Mr. Rogers … it registered as … fiercely soulful."