John Abercrombie, Smietana Speak Easy

The follow-up to While We're Young has a less melodic, more loosely structured feel, as if it were all kinetically inspired and freely improvised within various structures. The intuition or trust level of electric guitarist John Abercrombie, organist Dan Wall, and drummer Adam Nussbaum is clearly evident: They are listening, reacting, and responding to each other from measure to measure, and that is the basis for their music making.

This set is a little different than most ECM releases, because the trio (guitarist John Abercrombie, organist Dan Wall and drummer Adam Nussbaum) performs a couple of fairly straight-ahead standards – "You and the Night and the Music" and "Long Ago and Far Away" – in addition to six originals, including Wall's rhythmic "Bo Diddy." Not sounding at all like a typical soul-jazz organ group, these musicians take more advanced improvisations, with Wall (whose accompaniment of Abercrombie is quite atmospheric) emerging as the top soloist.

Animato is not so much John Abercrombie's date simply because his name is listed first alphabetically. It is much more the music of Vince Mendoza, who composed six of the eight selections, and whose work on synthesizer is the dominant voice on this set of ethereal progressive instrumental music. Drummer Jon Christensen takes no backseat in urging the music forward with a subtle presence that represents a distinct primal and tribal jazz element. What electric guitarist Abercrombie does is link with Mendoza, merging his own synthesized blends of earth, sky and space to create beautiful textures and soundscapes in tandem with Mendoza's conceptual arrangements and expanded color palates.

John Abercrombie's 1989 release UPON A TIME is, as the subtitle points out, an album of duets, mostly with bassist Mel Graves and drummer George Marsh. While bass and drum solos are often the punchlines of musical jokes, Graves and Marsh are skilled players with enough good taste to keep the flashiness to an interesting minimum. As for guitarist Abercrombie, his playing is typically brilliant, whether picking out the traditional melody of "My Scottish Heart" or moving into a more impressionistic sonic arena in tracks like "In the Woods" or "Chuck Man Rivers." Earthier and more expressly jazz-based than many releases on the ECM-affiliated New Albion label, UPON A TIME is a satisfying, richly rewarding album.

As part of ECM'0bs Old & New Masters series of box sets, John Abercrombie's The First Quartet collects three albums recorded for the label between 1978 and 1980. Two titles, 1979's Abercrombie Quartet and 1981's M, have been unavailable for decades. By the guitarist's own admission, this band represents the guitarist's first time as a "proper" bandleader. His earlier dates on ECM had been co-led sessions (Timeless, Gateway, Sargasso Sea), a solo album (Characters), and sideman gigs (Jack DeJohnette's New Directions, David Liebman's Lookout Farm, etc.). These three dates also represent an important foundation for Abercrombie as a composer.

John Abercrombie Quartet: Up and Coming Starting the new year with, if not precisely a bang, a nevertheless unforgettable record whose strength lies in pristine lyricism, nuanced group interplay and writing that capitalizes on the entire quartet's appreciation of subtlety over gymnastics and refined lyricism over angularity, John Abercrombie's Up and Coming—ECM's first release of the year—is also founded strongly on the concept of relationship.