Greenleaf Music GRE 1008 | ****
McCaslin (ts), Hans Glawischnig (b) and Jonathan Blake (d). Rec. 2008

This is like waiting ages for a bus. Then two come along at once! There hasn’t been a really outstanding tenor pianoless trio record since the classics by Rollins and Joe Henderson on Blue Note – and now, four weeks apart – we get two killer CDs, first by JD Allen (I Am I Am) and now by Dave Douglas’ tenorman McCaslin, not only known for his Grammy-nominated role in the Maria Schneider Orchestra, but also his many left-of-centre experiments with the likes of David Binney. The story goes that Douglas (half jokingly) asked him to “write and record the Great American Tenor Trio Record. Well, he delivered – with a stunning set of music”. 

Following two previous excellent outings on Sunnyside, McCaslin gives an absolutely blinding, barnstorming, take-no-prisoners performance on his Greenleaf debut. There are 10 tunes, nine original compositions (plus Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Isfahan’), all very different from each other, all challenging different aspects of his playing, while acknowledging a wide variety of musical influences – from Bill Frisell (the earthy, no-nonsense ‘Late Night Gospel’) and Hermeto Pascal (the hard-hitting, multi-rhythmed ‘The Champion’) to Stravinsky (the scale-based take-off entitled ‘Excursion’). He’s also revisited ‘Just Brazil’ from the In Pursuit album and a ballad from the book of the band he had with Binney, Lan Xang, never previously recorded (‘Marquis of Solitude’). But possibly the most highly-charged and emotive vehicle of the lot is the opening title track, a progressive but blues-derived tour-de-force.

This track fully illustrates the striking interplay between the three musicians. Glawischnig continues to move away from his customary Latin grooves and is a constantly impressive tower of strength, while Blake plays with all the drive of a great rock drummer combined with his normal jazz inventiveness. My colleague Jack Massarik once said that Blake, live, brilliantly plays all around the kit, seemingly without moving his arms from his sides. As for McCaslin, in a recent review of a record where he paid homage to the late Michael Brecker, I suggested that he could soon have a following similar to that of his idol. This record, a must for every conceivable saxophone player, stakes his claim. Tony Hall