| Recorded March 7, 2001. These four veterans of new music (two Americans ‹ Joe Fonda, bass, and Michael J. Stevens, piano, and two Europeans ‹ Hann Bennink, drums, and Gebhard Ullmann, reeds) need no introduction. Han Bennink is a new member of this quartet, but he sounds as if he has been looking for these partners all his life. Stevens, Fonda and Ullmann contribute their own compositions and there is one piece collectively improvised as well as a smashing Ullmann's arrangement of Nino Rota's "Parlami Di Me". Contemporary, modern jazz at its best. "... from the onset , it becomes easily discernible that the musicians' karma equates to a magical session ... 4 1/2 stars. ... on variations on a master plan the vivacious han bennink operates the drum chair. this incarnation opts for a slightly unrestrained mode of attack, featuring upwardly spiraling movements, free-bop chorusses and suspenseful gravitations toward a musical apex ..." Downbeat |