Children in Peril

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Canadian bassist Ellis has assembled an interesting cast of jazz pros to interpret a set of his original compositions dedicated to "all children who have suffered." This makes for a rather melancholy program overall (in his notes, Ellis observes that each of the band members "is attuned to the sound of tears." However, there's somewhat more to this disk than ballads and dirges, with some of the more lively pieces also reflecting emotional turmoil and even, toward the end of the set, quiet affirmation. Ellis's compositions are in the post-bop mode for the most part -- angular, dissonant, and rather abstract, but carefully structured, with little room for extended free blowing. As such, they have the peculiar quality of sounding traditional and avant garde at the same time. The jagged rhythms and elusive melodic fragments do not evoke any easy emotions, but this is ultimately a strength rather than a weakness, because the music continues to reveal new surfaces and dimensions even after numerous hearings. Band members include the talented Joe McPhee primarily on trumpet, Marco Eneidi on alto sax, Dana Reason on piano and Peter Apfelbaum on various saxes. McPhee's tart, fleet trumpet work and (presumably) Eneidi's somewhat acidic, vocalized alto sometimes approximates the sound of the classic Ornette Coleman quartet with Don Cherry. And while you may or may not want to call Ellis's compositions harmolodic, many of them have the same loose, contrapuntal structure, with an emphasis on interacting lines.