Sunday, November 08, 2009

The New 5, Introducing The New 5, Blue Canoe


In Austin, Texas, you tend to think alt rock, country and blues (me in particular, not being like all that turned on by alt rock and country), but music town actually has a thriving jazz community as well (trumpeter Thomas Heflin included) mostly on display at the Elephant Room, which is just a really excellent jazz club with a worthy selection, and cold, of beer and friendly employees and patrons.

This is Heflin and mates from Texas the university doing hard-, post-bop but sounding not at all like the '50s or '60s, rather, appropriately, like the 2000s. I'm not going to say they're every bit as good as, say, the Branford Marsalis Quartet, but I am going to say they're not too far from it and you would spend a lot less to hear them live. Good Fight makes me think of the second great Miles Davis quintet. Michael Arthurs on tenor sax and Peter Stoltzman on piano also are boffo.

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