Ron Miles: Circuit Rider

For 20 years inventive trumpeter-cornetist Ron Miles has had a special musical relationship with guitarist Bill Frisell, and this trio outing unites them with drummer Brian Blade. The buoyant “Comma” features Miles’ golden tones supported by Frisell’s shimmering chords and evocative loops as Blade comments with the sensitivity and keen reactive instincts he shows in Wayne Shorter’s quartet. Miles and Frisell demonstrate a rare musical telepathy on “The Flesh Is Weak,” where the guitarist bounces back and forth from chords and arpeggios to completing the cornetist’s melodic statements while Blade reacts and enhances with sticks and mallets. The intimate “Dancing Close and Slow” is underscored by Blade’s gentle brushwork and features guitar and cornet locked in tender embrace, and the bracing title track has the two shifting nimbly between tightly-crafted unisons and deft contrapuntal lines as Blade traverses the kit with briskly swinging aplomb. The highly interactive trio also turns in a giddy rendition of Charles Mingus’ “Jive Five, Floor Four” and pares down his dense, complex “Reincarnation of a Lovebird” to a sparse gem. They conclude with a subdued reading of Jimmy Giuffre’s moody “Two Kinds of Blues” that features some of Miles’ most brilliant soloing on the collection.