New Music - Bob Stewart

Flanagan/Byard Rediscovered; Mouse Roars

Over the past few years, Resonance Records has established itself as a home for such notable rediscoveries as Freddie Hubbard's "Pinnacle" and Wes Montgomery's "Echoes of Indiana Avenue." Now two titans of jazz piano are captured on the new CD -- "Tommy Flanagan/Jaki Byard: The Magic of 2" -- a previously unreleased 1982 concert recorded at San Francisco's celebrated Keystone Korner. "It's a revelation, how well they played together," says Keystone's owner, Todd Barkan. "They had quite disparate styles, but they share such an incredibly large vocabulary and frame of reference that it makes their language coherent." Jazz historian Dan Morgenstern says the music is a "gift from the past that is both unique and stupendous. Alone and especially together, Tommy and Jaki show us what spontaneous creation is all about."

Chicago drummer Jack Mouse has spent decades performing with some of the greatest names in jazz, including Stan Kenton, James Moody, Billy Taylor, Bill Evans, Frank Wess, Clark Terry, and many others. Now he's finally gathered together a quintet of some of his longtime collaborators to put together "Range of Motion" -- an intriguing set of ten original compositions. With Art Davis on trumpet, Scott Robinson on woodwinds, guitarist John McLean, and two titan bassists splitting duties, Bob Bowman and Kelly Sill, Mouse's well-seasoned group aesthetic receives a long-overdue recording debut.