Half Notes: The Reese Project – Evening in Vermont (2011)

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A straight-ahead jazz quartet with instrumentation as atypical as their sensibilities, the Reese Project’s Evening in Vermont is perhaps best summed up in the track “All Wood,” a nifty combination of Miles Davis’ “All Blues” and the Beatles “Norwegian Wood.” That it’s performed on flute (Tom Reese), cello (Laurie Haines Reese), piano (Kirk Reese) and drums (Dave Young) only adds another wrinkle to an already intriguingly unmade bed of musical ideas. Oh, Evening in Vermont, to be issued Sept. 19 on Rhombus Records, features covers of Roland Kirk’s “Serenade to a Cuckoo” and Wayne Shorter’s “Footprints” — as well as four new originals, including the title track. But even these are presented with a similar offbeat flair. Then there’s “Shenan-Do’h-a,” which somehow pays tribute to both great 19th century American songwriter Stephen Foster and … Homer Simpson? It’s that kind of record.

‘Half Notes’ are quick-take thoughts on music from Something Else! Reviews, presented whenever the mood strikes us.

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Nick DeRiso