People Places and Things: Proliferation

"Drummer Mike Reed formed this quartet last year to explore the rich but neglected trove of local postbop made between 1954 and 1960. When New York emerged as jazz's center in the late 40s it overshadowed most smaller scenes, but the tunes Reed tackles on the new Proliferation (482 Music) - associated with Sun Ra, John Jenkins, and Wilbur Campbell, among others - are as indelible as anything that was being cut at Rudy Van Gelder\'s place. Reed, reedists Greg Ward and Tim Haldeman, and bassist Jason Roebke don't try to make People, Places & Things a repertory band: though the buoyant rhythms and rippling melodies in these deeply soulful songs remain intact, that's not because they're played straight. The group pushes against the swing feel, and Ward and Haldeman, who steer clear of the traditional string-of-solos approach in favor of electric multilinear improvisations, abstract bits of the tunes - stretching and transforming them, stripping them down and reconstituting them - without sapping their vibrance. Proliferation proves not only how sturdy these songs are, but also how nimble, progressive, and hard-swinging Reed's quartet is. I don't know if I've enjoyed a jazz album more this year." — Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

"Reed avoids tired nostalgia by recasting these durable chestnuts with a rough-hewn edginess that is unsentimental, yet reverent. Placing a modernistic spin on a set of tunes that simultaneously looks ahead while evincing their innovative spirit, the quartet avoids routine conventions in favor of interweaving counterpoint, controlled collective improvisation and subtle rhythmic deconstruction." — Troy Collins, AllAboutJazz.com