Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Chris Potter, Larry Grenadier & Eric Harland: First Meeting: Live at Dizzy’s Club

Let us not beat around the bush or obfuscate the obvious: First Meeting: Live at Dizzy's Club is as sweet a listen anyone can wish for or expect as simpatico luminaries—pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Eric Harland—take to Dizzy's stage. And command it, but not with a heavy hand or selfish aspirations. A dazzling portent, First Meeting: Live at Dizzy's Club opens all the doors and windows facing Columbus Circle and lets a most refreshing vibe into the air, the room, the drinks and the super-lucky audience.

A great disc of a superb performance has got to come with an equally grand backstory and, in a thumbnail, the provenance of First Meeting: Live at Dizzy's Club goes like this: Instigated by Jason Olaine (who now serves as VP of Jazz Programming at Lincoln Center) and recorded over five hot August nights in 2022, Rubalcaba, Potter, Grenadier and Harland set out with only a set list in mind, accomplishing what few can—trust in the other, here and now.

Simply a master class in everything the music is revered, studied, and performed nightly for, First Meeting: Live at Dizzy's Club kicks off mightily with Chick Corea's Latin fusion epic "500 Miles High" a ruminatively subtle whirlwind that only maestros can conspire on any given evening. Grenadier's pliable samba, "State of the Union," (first heard on 2004's Fly, Savoy Jazz) is next on the set list, and the once-rehearsed quartet keeps all roads open for collective spontaneity and effortless individual statements. Opening on a percussive flurry, Harland's "Eminence" is clear-cut mastery and possibly the spotlight track. Bass and piano enter—at first driving, frenetic—slowing into a majestic aria. Potter then breaks through, echoing the long blues lines of Dexter Gordon. Rubalcaba takes it from there, his solo open to inspiration. After a brief clattering storm, Potter emerges again, with the searching spirit of John Coltrane guiding him as "Eminence" closes out on a post-bop high.

Though it has been played umpteen times by a host of greats—Stan Getz, Spike Wilner, Charles Mingus among them—Dizzy Gillespie's Latin jump anthem "Con Alma" has not been heard like this until now. Spiked by Rubalcaba and Harland's endless inventions, Grenadier's elasticity and Potter's whipping spirals, this "Con Alma" stands on its very own. Potter's vibrant "Oba" and Rubalcaba's masterful "Santo Canto" close out the set and leave Dizzy's howling. Why it has taken nearly three full years for First Meeting: Live at Dizzy's Club to reach our ears probably comes down to some boring economic reasoning. But it is here now, and a cinch for end-of-the-year-best-of lists.