This trio collection suffers not at all from the absence of a bass, since guitarist Stephen Magnusson and especially drummer Ben Vanderwal provide a more than adequate foundation for Jamie Oehlers’s tenor sax. There are compositions by each member of the group plus four standards included in the 15 tracks. The title track by Oehlers is an interesting, if melodically unpredictable theme, and a good example of the group’s supportive integration: sometimes sax and guitar play in unison as Vanderwal works the drum kit busily and with melodic understanding. After Oehlers’s energetic solo, underpinned by the guitar’s running bass line, the piece slows to a sagging stop, only to be revived for a final chorus by a vigorous drum solo.
The longest track at over eight minutes is an unlikely inclusion: Frank Loesser’s 1948 hit Slow Boat to China taken at a relaxed tempo with wandering elements in the interplay between sax and guitar. Keith Jarrett’s Backhand is the opener with Oehlers moving authoratively through the post-bop theme before launching into a travelling solo, urged along by both drums and guitar; Magnusson’s swinging solo is given added impetus by saxophone riffs and the driving drums. Vanderwal’s composition A Song To Parallel Park To has a repetitive opening with an insistent rhythm devolving into abstraction, while Magnusson’s So It Goes is a tranquil ballad floating serenely along with guitar and sax’s reciprocal interchanges.
These three top level players, work beautifully together, by listening acutely and reacting perceptively to the ideas and input from each other.
