Noel Johnston/Paul Tynan Quintet: NJPT

"A Texas Trilogy" may conjure up many assorted images... perhaps of driving a weighty old 4x4 truck down dusty roads while pumping back a six pack of swill that tastes more of the soil of spent oil fields than any beer, and all the while being on your way to the local sleaze palace to find a coke dame that can go for hours on a cleared pool table... Yes... perhaps those where the images you 'conjured' as well. In the jazz world things however are always different. Take the one half of the jazz leadership the makes up NJPT. This guitarist's T.T. begins with "Texas Inbred Crickets," leads into "Texas Toilet Bag" and finishes with "Texas Truck Water." His other contribution on the album is the soft swing of "20 Midgets." (I keep the 'small people' out of my conjuring... always.)

Anyway for all its subtle humor (a lone toilet is also displayed upon the disc itself. Hidden 'jazz' meaning? Who can know.) the album is a stellar work. Johnson guitar work is superb and his tone is colorful while not being too bright. Tynan's horn work is quite mature and always lyrical while Marcus Wolf's smooth tone on tenor is a pleasure. Michael Barton is a solid bass playerand a perfect compliment to the grooving stick work of Joel Fountain. This is an album well worth picking up, very strong and very, very swinging. J.R. Ewing would be proud.

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