BLESS YOU...:

Harrell opened with a venerable standard, Jerome Kern's "The Song Is You," producing a pure, golden timbre on fluegelhorn. If this was a bit of nostalgia from a soloist who more typically spotlights original compositions, it was beautifully wrought. For Harrell began by playing the tune in fairly straightforward fashion before inventing alternate melodies on its famous chord changes.

Here was the essence of Harrell's art: melodic strands that sounded at once surprising and inevitable. Danny Grissett's shimmering pianism, bassist Ugonna Okegwo's soft-and-buoyant lines and drummer Adam Cruz's hushed-but-driving accompaniment added ambience without disturbing the delicacy of Harrell's sound. A sure indication of the regard in which these musicians hold the bandleader. [...]

The centerpiece of the set changed the evening's tonal vocabulary once again, as Harrell played trumpet and fluegelhorn in a duet with pianist Grissett in "Vibrer." Also drawn from "Moving Picture," "Vibrer" suggested a classical sonata, complete with multiple themes and sections, plus carefully scripted interchange between the two players.

In some moments, Harrell's steeped-in-blues lines were accompanied by Grissett's streaked-in-dissonance riffs. At other times, Harrell and Grissett rode the same rhythm while going their own ways melodically. In still other passages, they played cat-and-mouse, one chasing the other. Through it all, Harrell achieved profundity through economy, saying a great deal with a few well-chosen notes.

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