Three guys in ball caps, one woman with blazing arm tattoos, one guest vocalist from Mars, all having a ball peforming master-class jazz, because they're good enough that it doesn't feel like work.
Logan Kane's cherubic smile didn't distract us from his prodigious chops on upright bass or his considerable ability as a composer, now pulling down "Giant Steps"-style post-bop, now drifting into winding wonder. His work with David Binney and Henry Solomon and previously with Nicole McCabe has demonstrated that he likes to bounce off an active saxist. But that action never excludes the drummer, here the lightly whisking young Myles Martin, whose teeth shining through his dreads made it look as if he were riding a roller-coaster instead of pingponging with Kane from a drum stool.
Just as central to the rhythm section was the electric keyboard of the somewhat more senior John Escreet, who kept darting glances at Kane and Martin during his aggressive, wide-ranging solos, encouraging his bandmates to accent and amplify; the energy came back at him redoubled. Though his favorite thing seemed to be balls-out fusion, Escreet slid easily into many roles, shining especially on McCabe's jagged, modern conception of the rarely covered "We See" by Thelonious Monk -- one of McCabe's historical specialties, another being Ornette Coleman, whose "When Will the Blues Leave?" received a house-burning treatment that emphasized Coleman's debt to Charlie Parker. Generous with the stage, McCabe twice granted the spotlight to T-shirted and bespectacled vocalist Lorin Benedict, who bippity-bopped with his lips in ways you wouldn't think even a sax could accomplish until McCabe placed her alto adjacent and virtually duplicated him.
It now appears Nicole McCabe can do just about anything with that horn. For years her lines have run long, clean and fascinating, pulled off with rhythmic ease, offhand confidence and a dark, sensual tone. But as demonstrated on her new ballad "To You," she can also breathe around the edges of her reed in original methods. No longer a newcomer out of USC -- an L.A. essential headed for the world.
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Note: If you haven't visited the High Low in Atwater Village for its Monday-night jazz series, do yourself a favor and take in its consistently high level of talent, friendly surroundings (including a comfortable sealed-off mini-lounge for the music), good Tex-Mex food and low cover charge.
PHOTO BY FUZZY BAROQUE.