Paul Vornhagen: Live at the Blue LLama

Saxophonist and composer Paul Vornhagen, a durable pillar on Detroit's jazz scene for almost three decades, puts his working quartet straight to work on this inspiring concert date, recorded in November 2023 at the Blue Llama Jazz Club in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The group's precision and empathy are clear from the outset, as pianist Pat Cronley, bassist Patrick Prouty and drummer Larry Ochiltree put their heads and hands together to lend Vornhagen unwavering support on every number, from the bright and charming "Bernie's Tune" to the last phrase of the leader's charismatic "La Noche." As for Vornhagen, he supplants his expressive and muscular tenor saxophone with a sensuous flute on three numbers, plays soprano sax on his high-spirited "Cozy Does It," and appends sincere albeit unsteady vocals to a trio of well-known standards: Jerome Kern/Ira Gershwin's "Long Ago and Far Away," Duke Ellington's "Do Nothin' Til You Hear from Me" and Cole Porter's "Night and Day" (on which he also plays soprano).

Besides leading the group's melodic and metric charge, Vornhagen wrote five of the album's eleven engaging themes and arranged everything. And while he is of course the album's primary voice and improviser, Cronley solos often and well, reinforcing every statement with plausibility and perception, while Prouty and Ochiltree keep the rhythmic fire burning on high. Bernie Miller's "Bernie's Tune," first recorded in the early 1950s by Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker's pianoless quartet, is a near-perfect opener, neatly setting the stage for Vornhagen's delicious "Montuno Salad" (on flute) and his first vocal, on "Long Ago and Far Away."

Two more Vornhagen originals, "Elephants" and "Hey Pops," lead to "Do Nothin'" and Juan Tizol's well-traveled "Caravan," followed by "Cozy Does It," Steve Allen and Ray Brown's tantalizing "Gravy Waltz," "Night and Day" and the upbeat finale, "La Noche," which places an indelible exclamation mark on a radiant and colorful concert date, seventy-four minutes long, few if any of which are misspent.