Phil Grenadier: Shimmer

Boston, MA, based trumpeter Phil Grenadier is a highly regarded jazz artisan, performing and recording with famous crooners, rock bands and ingratiating his wares within numerous progressive jazz fronts. He's also taught at New York City's prestigious Mannes College of Music and for the most part, has enjoyed status as a go-to session ace amid a stockpile of impressive accomplishments. His leadership skills and consummate technical gifts shine radiantly on Shimmer.

Indeed, the musicians must have had their biorhythms in alignment for this studio date. Grenadier steers the band through a rippling program with his articulate, thorny, and scorching solos, contrasted by a great deal of give and take with his associates through a set of time-honored standards. They explore various cadences and smolder the proceedings into exploding cadenzas.

Grenadier tears apart ballads and finalizes the album with Wayne Shorter's jazz classic, "Footprints." Here, drummer Karen Kocharayan launches the festivities with a gutsy breakout, followed by Will Slater's prominent bass pattern that sets up the primary theme. Grenadier follows by introducing the core melody via his dark-toned, resonating lines and expressive choruses. With a fierce improvisational emphasis, the musicians often modulate the medium-tempo groove. Moving forward, the trumpeter engages in a few bars of conversation with Kocharayan, leading to a bit of decompression towards the closeout. Invigorating and delivered with a razor-sharp focus, Grenadier's spine-tingling solos cast an aura of excitement that prevails from beginning to end.