Mirages

Having moved out of his comfort zone to work with a different group of sidemen on 2008's Out of the Circle, trumpeter Alex Sipiagin returns to his Criss Cross roots with 2009's Mirages. A fairly straight-ahead affair featuring a heavy dose of progressive post-bop, Mirages is the kind of meat-and-potatoes album that fans of Sipiagin's inventive and highly adventurous playing have come to love. Joining Sipiagin here is equally forward-thinking saxophonist Seamus Blake, pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Boris Kozlov, and drummer Johnathan Blake. Sipiagin has long evinced a strong infatuation with the music of the late trumpeter Woody Shaw, and the inclusion of pianist Miller, a member of Shaw's group in the '80s, only deepens that notion. In fact, such tracks as the sparkling opening cut "One for Mike I" and the funkily fractured "Levitin's Kingdom" clearly draw inspiration from Shaw's angular and driving modal style. Of course, as enamored with the future horizon of the music as Sipiagin is, he is also at his core a die-hard student of jazz tradition, as evidenced by his burning mid-album take of Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things." Beginning, unexpectedly, with a muscular bass solo, the track develops into a "Caravan"-esque tango during the theme and then opens up for a high-octane Sipiagin, who runs the changes with a deft suppleness. Joe Henderson's bluesy "Tetragon" follows suit with more "in but out"-style lines from the ensemble. If Mirages isn't Sipiagin's most boundary-pushing effort, it's certainly one of his most enjoyable.