Picking up on 's idea, borrowing some old , and splitting the total down the middle, lends his warm fatback tone, arching skyward passages and a quartet concept to ten popular songs of the 20th century. , , and the share space with and -- distinguished songwriters all, yet the scorecard tells us that the oldsters' tunes consistently receive more interesting treatment than the / songs. is flexible enough to turn almost into an acoustic thing; saunters along very soulfully; the near rhythm on pulls some inspired heat from . On the other side of the divide, isn't very interesting, where even tricky rhythm changes and an -like high note coda can't pump up an earthbound performance. fragments under a treatment presumably planned with in mind ( 's soprano sounds desperately out of gas at the close). Oddly enough, a broadly funky approach pays off on the sole exception to the pattern. This is not to say that the material is intrinsically inferior to the -- no way. They simply do not translate very well into the language of the young neo-boppers, or at least, these neo-boppers on this given day. (piano), (bass) and (drums) make up the technically faultless, flexible piano trio, and most of the selections are separated by short, untitled interludes that usually grow more or less out of the preceding pieces. ~ Richard S. Ginell