Jimmy Halperin: High And Outside

Pianist Lennie Tristano's music was in many ways more complex than bebop, featuring a different harmonic language and driven by long, freely improvised melodic lines over a carefully modulated rhythm section. Tristano's disciple, saxophonist Lee Konitz, was the most creative interpreter of this approach and demonstrated its limitless possibilities over eight decades before his passing in 2020.

The spirit of Tristano and Konitz is captured well in this live set, originally recorded in April of 2002 at Rutgers University Institute for Jazz Studies, featuring the seasoned trio of Jimmy Halpern on tenor sax, Don Messina on bass and Bill Chattin on drums. Both Halperin and Chattin spent years studying with Tristano and so the influence is so strong that there are passages on High and Outside where you might think you You are listening to an outtake of Tristano's 1950 recording Wow (Capitol Records) or Konitz's immortal record, Motion (Verve Records, 1961).

The HMC trio had been gigging regularly for several years and so they were fully prepped and ready to go when they launched into the material that ranges from Tristano classics to imaginative interpretations of bebop and trad jazz standards. The feeling is truly in-the-moment and Halperin is in terrific form, spinning out infinite melodies like silk for a spider web.

Tristano's composition "April" generates serious momentum, driven by Messina's propulsive bass line and soaring melodic statements from Halperin, his circular breathing pushing the solo beyond the limit. Their version of the "A Ghost of A Chance" is forlorn and beautiful, while Bird's "Ornithology" is given a compelling double-time treatment.

Halperin digs in even more deeply on the Konitz/Marsh composition "Sax of a Kind," working up a real sweat, vacillating from deep tones to fluttering scalar runs. The energy is palpable with percolating drums and free-form melodic exploration. It's a total mic drop. "Marionette" is nearly its equal, taken at a more carefree pace with the bass given more freedom to shine, and Messina darting in and out of the melody with bop-ish aplomb.

Released decades after the fact, High and Outside nevertheless hits the sweet spot for those looking for cogently constructed cool jazz without the histrionics of post-bop or the dissonance of Trane-inspired free jazz.