Tim Hagans: The Avatar Session: The Music of Tim Hagans

Once again, Hagan collaborates with veteran drummer Peter Erskine, but this time around the team recruits a number of well-known guests that not only give the disc some additional star power, but provide Hagans with some stylistic specificity for the writing. With another veteran, Rufus Reid, filling the bass chair, Hagans also has a powerhouse of a rhythm section, capable of tearing it up on high energy charts like "Palt Seanuts" (a nod to the legendary Dizzy Gillespie), but equally adept at delivering the balladic "Here With Me" with a combination of textural grace and unfailing dynamism.

Hagans cut his teeth with Stan Kenton (where he first met Erskine) and Woody Herman, so while there's no shortage of big band swagger to reference his time with those icons, Hagans' modernistic penchant remains intact. The music may swing hard—and it does so mightily on the opening "Buckeyes"—but the harmonies are more sophisticated, the arrangements more detailed, and even the tempo subject to shift, as it does towards the end of George Garzone's barnstorming solo, leading into a solo of equal fire and invention from Hagans. Dave Liebman's soprano solo on "Here With Me," on the other hand, finds the usually expressionistic saxophonist in a more restrained mood, though the innate lyricism featured on this lushly orchestrated track—picking up, perhaps, where Gil Evans left off and might have gone, were he alive today—is no surprise to any who have followed his long and varied career.

Liebman Group guitarist Vic Juris guests on the funkier "Boo," and while he doesn't solo—that's left for some spirited interplay between Hagans and guest trumpeter Randy Brecker—his gritty, groove-centric accompaniment, once again proves him to be the perfect choice for any session. Hagans provides some of Norbotten's players a chance in the spotlight as well, in particular on the up-tempo "Box of Cannoli," where Hagans' knotty chart—a combination of bright horns and warm woodwinds, all bolstered by Erskine's combination of delicate cymbal work and thundering toms—nearly defies the imagination, but not absolutely articulate execution by the entire ensemble.

With a resurgence of larger ensembles on the American scene over the past couple years, it's easy to forget that, in Europe, big bands have never gone away. With a combination of intellectually deep yet visceral charts, high level soloing and, at its core, a large ensemble capable of anything he can throw at it, The Avatar Sessions finds Hagans fashioning a big band sound for the 21st century—reverent of what's come before, but with a wide open eye on what's to come.

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