Guitarist Ed Cherry played in Dizzy Gillespie’s last band, and since then has also worked with Hamiett Bluiett, Henry Threadgill, Oliver Lake and Steve Coleman among others.
Those names might suggest an avant-garde approach, but for his first disc on Posi-Tone Cherry chooses to play it mainstream in an organ trio format with the guitar on top.
Pat Bianchi is on organ and Byron Landham on drums, and the programme includes a couple of tasty Cherry originals in among such evergreens as You Don’t Know What Love Is, In A Sentimental Mood, Maiden Voyage, Blue In Green and Epistrophy.
But Cherry and crew make them sound fresh and warm, and the whole album has the easy-going groove of a Grant Green or Wes Montgomery session.
Not ground-breaking, but sometimes ground-breaking is tiring and feels like hard work. Neither of those feelings here.
