Constellations hatOLOGY *****

This just reissued 1995 studio session, made while trumpeter Dave Douglas’s Tiny Bell Trio (with guitarist Brad Schepik and drummer Jim Black) was on tour, catches the group at a peak. The repertoire, which included pieces by the great jazz pianist Robert Schumann, Herbie Nichols, and singer- songwriter Georges Brassens, was mostly Douglas originals, some in Spanish or Balkan colours. Yet the trio had the ability to make this diversity clear and, at the same time, to absorb it into its own musical universe. The speed and precision of response and the unity of focus shaped by three years together made this possible – and allowed the solos to develop organically from the trio’s democratic dialogue in a way few groups have equalled. And, for all the intellectual and political weight behind Douglas’s originals, the music has a wit, humour, freshness and vibrancy that endure. Clinical it’s not. See hathut.com