Alberto Pinton Quintet: Vita Pratica

Italian multi-reed ace Alberto Pinton takes his art rather seriously. Time and time again he produces some of the more stimulating jazz to be heard. A resident of Sweden, the artist employs regional musicians to round out his long-running quintet. It's a complexly enacted and polytonal engagement, where the band merges the structural component with free-wheeling expressiveness. Think of a little big band that executes within a flexible mode of attack, as it skirts riskier frontiers amid counterbalancing mini-motifs and resonating contrasts.

Many of these works are subdivided into layered themes. On "Naked Truth, the horns pursue drawling unison choruses atop frothy underpinnings and bassist Torbjörn Zetterberg's silky smooth ostinato groove. There's lots going on under the hood as the ensemble imparts a story comprised of interweaving lines and vibraphonist Mathias Ståhl's Tinker Bell-like accents. Pinton is a proverbial force of nature throughout, complementing his band mates' rolling waves of sound and sojourning into the ozone.

The leader throttles down the flow a bit via his sublime baritone sax phrasings during "Jada Jada. But the quintet gradually ups the ante towards a tenacious, rough-and-tumble sequence of events with propulsive unison vamps, abetted by trombonist Mats Äleklint's popping notes.

Pinton is on the money here. You certainly get a bang for your buck, as this quintet dishes out thrills a minute, through investigative frameworks that mold the finer attributes of progressive jazz with a newer way of thinking. It would be a criminal injustice for any serious-minded jazz aficionado to ignore Pinton's all-embracing musicality.