Steve Haines Quintet with Jimmy Cobb - Stickadiboom (CD)

All Music Guide

Not that this gloriously cool and hard swinging bop celebration led by veteran bassist Steve Haines needs any shimmering pedigree to qualify as an instant classic, but a few connections to Miles Davis do bear mentioning. Holding down the rhythm section with Haines and dexterous as ever is 78 year old Jimmy Cobb, a member of the classic Miles quintet that recorded Kind Of Blue; Cobb was on tour in 2009 leading a set of young musicians in a yearlong celebration of the seminal album's 50th anniversary. And if that piano at NYC's Clinton Studios, played both eloquently and aggressively by Chip Crawford, could talk, it might have spun tales of when Bill Evans held court during those classic Davis sessions. It all makes sense considering that Haines directs the Miles Davis Program in Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. So what does the quirky album title mean? It's the sound Cobb makes as he drives the percussive groove on the hard chugging "The Freighttrain" and ...pieces like the seductively swaying title track and the quick throbbing "Sutak 911," both of which feature the wild, blasting trumpet sizzle of Rob Smith. Smith is also the melodic focus on the easier going cuts, the mournful ballad "Patience" and the elegant and sensual "Prospect Park," while the dark "Re: Frayne"includes a thoughtful basspiano repartee between Crawford and Haines. Cobb makes it historic but the rest of the quintet creates contemporary bop at its best. - Jonathan Widran, All Music Guide Read more Less