Simon Nabatov Quartet featuring Ralph Alessi: Lovely Music

An alternative title for Lovely Music by Russian-born, German -based pianist Simon Nabatov might be Greatest Hits. He has selected some of his most tuneful works from across his career for interpretation by a quintet which includes American trumpeter Ralph Alessi in a one-off performance. Completing the lineup of this 2021 live date from Nabatov's home from home, Loft in Cologne, are more regular colleagues saxophonist Sebastian Gille, bassist David Helm and drummer Leif Berger. However, it presents not as a blowing date with a guest soloist, but as a functioning unit in which the trumpeter is fully integrated into the group sound.

Nabatov's charts fully use the instrumental resources at his disposal, offering multipart arrangements and a complex weave of interlocking lines. The written elements also provide prompts for the pithy solos, ensuring that they contribute to the piece's fabric. Perhaps Nabatov selected the material with Alessi's lyrical persona in mind, as he revels in the melodic contours while nonetheless imbuing them with an impish energy and expressive flourishes. Even his sustained upper register squeals still suggest consonance. While everyone gets space to step out, opportunities are sparingly apportioned, ensuring that the focus remains on the compositions.

Helm's litany of creaks, rattles and thwacks shows his familiarity with improv tropes in his unaccompanied introduction and coda to the faded glamour of "Nature Morte 8," even as the lush theme swells up from beneath. While generally the solos lean towards the inside, they do so with elegance and verve. Even Nabatov, no stranger to unfettered explosions, remains content to showcase the band as much as his own prodigious chops. The nearest he comes to cutting loose are the rhapsodic variations he spins alone during the heartbreakingly elegiac "No Doubt."

Nabatov packs more into a single song than many groups do into an entire album.