Steve Million: What I Meant to Say

Steve Million, thoughtful, well established, and prolific, has recorded another elegant outing to complement his Jazz Words (Origin, 2021). No vocalist this time, but some old friends from his Kansas City days who combine to produce a wonderfully reflective entry.

Million's compositions—and they are all his—are stylish and distinctive. "Open the Book" is an appropriate title for a sonorous and thoughtful entrance, although named for his daughter Peige, at the time of writing, a year old, but now forty. Mildly up tempo, "Old Earl" moves along, somewhere between fusion, bop, and Latino. It is anything but conventional, with Million and Steve Cardenas humming along, and Cardenas framing an engaging solo. "The Company," (is this a reference to the one in Langley, VA?) is an exercise in tension and release, featuring a kind of circular melodic and instrumental refrain. "Situations" features Million on solo piano, straight but moving into swing time, right on the beat throughout, generating some sense of hurry that flows into a dialog between bass and drums. "My Explanation" (and reading the liner notes, you can understand Randy Brecker's comment apropos) features long, legatoish lines and glides over phrases. It is soft jazz, not smooth, punctuated by an erupting, stomping blues. Million clearly has a fondness for triple time that feels like two. Both "Blue Lizard" and "Waltz for Mr Abercrombie" employ the device, whose technical name is left to the aficionado of music theory. "Missing Page" is again dedicated to Million's daughter, Peige. It is appropriately downbeat, if not exactly missing from the book. Musical imagination of a pretty high order informs all Million's compositions. The band is smoothly elegant.

Million is musically articulate in a way few are. His enigmatic titles aside.