Out of This World

Recorded live at the Carroboro Arts Center in Carroboro, NC in 1991, Out of This World finds Ted Nash's early 1990s quartet playing melodic and mostly "inside" hard bop and post-bop but going "outside" a few times with likable results. The performance marked the end of a three-week tour by the quartet, which included Nash on tenor sax, Frank Kimbrough on piano, Ben Allison on bass and Tim Horner on drums. Except for the opener, "Out of This World," this CD favors Nash and Kimbrough's own material over standards. The playing is mostly "inside" on "Out of This World," Kimbrough's pensive "Hope" and Nash's vibrant "City Hall," but more of an "inside/outside" approach is taken on Kimbrough's 15-minute "Sadness." Influenced by both Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus, this angular piece finds the quartet alternating between bluesy testifying and dissonant "outside" playing. The set isn't as adventurous as some of the concerts that Allison's Jazz Composers Collective would hold in New York in the mid-to-late 1990s (some of which included Nash and Kimbrough). Still, this is a decent offering from a foursome that was cohesive and certainly swinging.