Charles Tolliver is one of those unsung heroes that jazz fans love. An incendiary, trumpeter who played with Jackie Mclean, he started the highly collectible Strata-East label with pianist Stanley Cowell in the late ’60s. Driven out of business when they had a hit with Gil Scott Heron’s ‘The Bottle’ in the mid-’70s (wholesalers cynically stiffed the label by over-ordering copies they couldn’t possibly sell), Tolliver vanished for 30 years only to reappear on Andrew Hill’s sublime ‘Time Lines’ album last year (our jazz album of the year).
‘With Love’ literally explodes out of the blocks. Its opening track ‘Rejoincin’’ is a wondrous, bustling, slice of downhome big band where the churning horns offer the perfect launch pad for a bursting, hurried solo from Tolliver. This is post-Mingus jazz, packing a punch and spoiling for a dust-up. No big band has sounded as excitingly visceral since... well, Tolliver’s own albums in the early ’70s, and old muckers on the job include bassist Cecil McBee, pianist Cowell and preaching tenorist Billy Harper. But it’s Blue Note’s new kid on the block, pianist Robert Glasper, who almost (but not quite) steals the show from the leader with his hyperventilating interventions. Wow! Welcome back, Charles: you’ve been missed.
