5/4 MAGAZINE                
EXPLORING JAZZ                              FROM MAINSTREAM TO OFFBEAT

MILO PETERSEN
Visiting Dignitaries
PASSAGE
JIM KNAPP
On Going Home
SEA BREEZE

Both "Visiting Dignitaries" and "On Going Home" feature some of the Northwest's hottest jazz talent. Milo Petersen with his Jazz Disciples approaches the music from a variety of angles.  He routinely works as a guitarist and drummer but sticks to drums for this project. However, his melodic and harmonic sensibilities are well displayed in his compositions and arrangements.

To get the most out of these charts, Petersen assembled Jay Thomas (trumpet), Rick Mandyck (tenor sax), Marc Seales (piano), and Phil Sparks (bass) into a straight-ahead, powerhouse quintet.  With players of this caliber the CD holds enough potential energy to light up a sizable city.  The rub comes from having heard the band in person. As solid as the recording is, its toughest competition is the same band playing live. A couple of the recorded cuts, although competent, seem stiff in comparison.

That's definitely not the case with the title cut. It opens with an African-tinged highly syncopated fanfare led by the horns and punched heavily by the rhythm section, but it soon erupts into an irrepressible swing. The fanfare's rhythmic pattern reappears in each chorus, but the swing never stops. Sparks lays down a bass line that anchors the horn solos so well that even the rhythmically impaired will want to dance.

"Seiji and Hiroshi" opens with bass call and drum response, eventually finding its way into a highly syncopated and pleasing groove. And "Prayer," contrary to its title, also packs a considerable rhythmic punch. "Some Other Blues" seems a fitting closer. It has the happy feel of a familiar tune Blakey and his Messengers used to play but whose title eludes me. And why shouldn't it? Disciples are messengers, too.