Trumpeter Ron Miles is joined by guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Brian Blade. A two-member rhythm section can be tricky, but Frisell and Blade handle it wonderfully with the guitar splitting time between the bassline and chords and doubling the melody the drums never cover up such a sparse line up, yet keep the comping busy enough to make the trio sound complete. The entire album evokes warm summer breezes in the way only west coast jazz can but never goes stale. The album gets out of the gate with “Bruise,” a pointillistic, angular melody which slowly blossoms into a nine and a half minute work. The next track, “Queen B” is much cooler, Blade’s cymbals sizzle and Frisell makes intriguing harmonic statements as Queen B lounges in the summer heat and continues to languish as Mr. Kevin (track 3) enters, before picking up with the first truly catchy hook of the album about 1’30” in. The setting of the album seems to change to the south with a bluesy track in “There Ain’t No Sweet Man that’s Worth the Salt of My Tears” and a straight-up New Orleans composition in “Just Married,” and continues the old-school feel with a Duke Ellington composition “Doin’ the Voom Voom.” In my favorite track “Rudy-Go-Round,” a 12-bar blues that sounds anything but, everyone loosens up a little bit and bops hard, but seems that the trio is ashamed to be having fun, ending abruptly and awkwardly after 6 minutes.
