Recorded in a day in September last year in New York led by Vienna based Serbian drummer Vladimir Kostadinovic there’s plenty of star power and the tunes are strong. Alex Sipiagin reviewed recently in these pages heard on Reverberations and DayDream is in his element in this progressively inclined hard bop setting and meshes well with Chris Potter who was enjoyable earlier in the year on Carl Allen’s Tippin’ and with Ben Wendel. Both saxists are superb communicators and there’s a conversational aspect to their soloing in numerous passages.
Kostadinovic’s tunes have an edge to them and a tenderness too, the latter aspect you get on ‘Unborn Child’. Vibist Joe Locke’s role on that piece is interestingly woven in to the ensemble sound so it is evident but does not over flavour the sound. I liked his tune ‘Is There a Heart In This House’ best and when Geoffrey Keezer takes up the reins on ‘Collectors in Emotion’ a whole new dimension of the album opens up given the colours he conjures. Iris also includes a cover of Sonny Rollins’ ‘Airegin’. The album is named for Kostadinovic’s daughter. To my ears he sounds a bit Tony Williams-like in places and also reminds me of a drummer called Marijus Aleksa. Pretty good overall – more killer than filler.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
