Vibraphonist Warren Wolf has a light and dexterous sound that makes this album an appealing mainstream jazz experience. He in joined on this recording by Christian McBride on bass, Peter Martin on piano, Greg Hutchinson on drums, Tim Green on alto and soprano saxophone, and Jeremy Pelt sits in on trumpet for a few tracks. Opening with “427 Mass. Ave." the music is upbeat with a touch of funk and nice drumming. Pelt adds some punchy trumpet to the festivities, and there is a fine elastic bass solo in addition to vibes and drums interplay. The fast paced hard-bop continues on “Sweet Bread" with deeply swinging vibes and strong saxophone. Deeply rounded saxophone and drums with vibes accenting carries “Eva" with potent saxophone and percussive vibe solos highlighted. The dynamic “Katrina" begins appropriately with a haunted melancholy feel, before developing dynamically with fast and percussive vibraphone. Powerful saxophone and a deeply elastic bass feature drive the music through to its conclusion. Full blast bebop oriented jazz is the order of the day on “One for Lenny" opening with a rapid bass solo, and then moving into a lightning fast vibes and bass feature. After a fast and nimble saxophone solo, McBride gets a nice bowed bass feature backed by light mallet accents. This was a fine all around album, sure to appeal to mainstream jazz enthusiasts. The band was comfortable and impressive at any speed from bop to ballads and worked very well together. Warren Wolf—amazon.com
