On the face of it, this is the kind of release I would normally pass by, dismissing it as just another set of standards with the odd original, played by just another set of highly competent but derivative musicians.
What attracted me was the presence of tenorist Bob Berg, who was with Miles Davis in London this year, and who I suspected had an interesting style. I was right – his solo on the effectively modal Manteca is the most absorbing horn improvisation on the record. The lineage seems obvious: Coltrane-Brecker-Berg.
Other outstanding points (or sore thumbs) are Cedar Walton’s excellent and eclectic solo of Close Enough For Love, with its references to Debussy, and the shaky Cuban-inflected trumpeting of Armenteros, whose pedestrian comments seem misplaced in this relatively sophisticated company.
These men are not exactly charting the unknown (what is the perennial attraction of the trite St Thomas?) but they’ve set the right course.
Discography
Manteca; Close Enough For Love; St Thomas (17.55) – I Am No So Sure; Epistrophy; Groundwork (19.09)
Cedar Walton (p); Curtis Fuller (tb); Bob Berg (ts); Alfredo Armenteros (t); David Williams (b); Billy Higgins (d). Holland, May 1983.
(Timeless SJP 184)
