Brian Citro: Keep Moving (Home)

The sound of Brian Citro's mellow guitar introduces "Stay Where You Feel," the first of his 14 original compositions on Keep Moving (Home), most of which began life as pieces for solo guitar and were revised by Citro to suit a quartet format.

Citro's teammates on this generally pleasing yet largely anodyne session are alto saxophonist Nick Mazzarella, bassist Matt Ulery and drummer Quin Kirchner. Mazzarella doubles on the seldom-heard Wurlitzer organ. About the only thing that could top that would be doubling as a human rights lawyer, which Citro does.

Citro is a proficient composer and arranger who tends to lean for the most part on slow-to-moderate tempos with flexible and sophisticated harmonic progressions. There are moments when that works quite well, others less so. Nevertheless, that is where the quartet has pitched its tent, and that is the locus from which its image and identity flow.

While Citro tries to alter the ambience through use of the Wurlitzer, Ulery's electric guitar, and some nuanced electronics, he and the others are unable to evade a sense of sameness that tends to soften the session's overall import. The nearest brush with heat arrives via Mazzarella's brisk alto solo on the relatively upbeat "Trains of Thought." But that is the album's final number if one does not count its "bonus" track, the brief and reverb-laden "Take Your Time."

Citro and his companions are seasoned musicians, and this is a good session, albeit one whose diversity is narrow and whose charm may be limited to those whose affinity for earnest yet mostly gentle 'background music' supersedes any need for exuberance, intensity or immersion.