(Contemporary Jazz, Piano) [WEB] Jim Doxas Trio (Paul Schrofel, Morgan Moore) - Blind Leap - 2015, FLAC (tracks), lossless

You never know with whom Montreal drummer Jim Doxas will pop up, given the quality and versatility of his playing.
A staunch traditionalist such as fellow Montrealer and pianist Oliver Jones tours and records with Doxas, but so too has leading-edge trumpeter Dave Douglas. Ottawa bassist John Geggie has tapped Doxas to join him to play with pianist Ed Simon and saxophonist Donny McCaslin, among others. You get the idea.
When Doxas recently released Blind Leap, his debut disc as a leader, I was curious to see which way it would go.
It turns out to be a piano trio disc featuring Doxas with his Montreal peers pianist Paul Schrofel and bassist Morgan Moore, and their has a fresh, contemporary spin to it.
Although Doxas’ name is on the disc’s front cover, he says on the notes inside that he considers the album a group effort. It certainly features lots of audible, in-the-moment dovetailing of all concerned, and a huge sense of musical co-operation.
Of nine tracks, five were written by Schrofel, who contributes well-crafted and intriguing compositions. But let’s start then but considering the ones that weren’t. Three of them are covers, which as choices and interpretations attest to the trio’s inclination to go its own way.
Fall, which was a floating, hypnotic waltz when its composer Wayne Shorter recorded it with Miles Davis, is taken in a groovy almost parade-style 4/4 before it ignites into the disc’s most brash and ebullient swinging. Schrofel’s plays in an appealing post-Herbie Hancock mode on this track, but elsewhere on the disc he, like Doxas, heads in different directions as the program dictates.
The ballad My Old Flame has been reharmonized, and sounds a little more austere and modern at the same time, but maintains its lost-love sentiment.
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded is a hymn from circa 1600. The trio maintains the song’s character while applying their improvising abilities to extend it.
Among the pieces penned by Schrofel is the left-of-centre disc-starter, Melo 3. With its quirkiness, stops-and-starts, fine ensemble playing and brash swinging, all of the course of eight minutes, the track encapsulates the breadth of the entire disc.
Act One is a waltz that begins languidly but grows more expansive. The charged tune Effervescence includes an especially big drum solo from Doxas. KP includes a vamp that brings to my mind what Danilo Perez does when he’s on the bandstand with Wayne Shorter.
Closing the disc is Berceuse pour Jan, is some distilled free playing — “blind leaping?” — by the trio that amounts to a mood piece and a tribute for Montreal pianist and Doxas collaborator Jan Jarczyk, who died last summer.
Doxas has put his name to a disc he can be proud. It’s consistently probing and boasts lots of personality, and its nicely loose and even molten, with a refreshing and natural-feeling avoidance of the usual. (Peter Hum)

Paul Schrofel ✫ piano
Morgan Moore ✫ bass
Jim Doxas ✫ drums