Number Five [LP]

Tom Harrell has had a lot of success with his series of quintet recordings for HighNote, but his fifth release for the label, which uses the same musicians as the first four CDs (tenor saxophonist Wayne Escoffery, pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Ugonna Okegwo, and drummer Johnathan Blake), takes a different path, featuring the full band on four of the eleven tracks, then in various configurations from solo to duo, trio, and quartet. He explodes out of the box with a fiery take of Dizzy Gillespie's "Blue 'N' Boogie" accompanied solely by Blake. Harrell previously recorded his mellow ballad "Journey to the Stars" as a duet with Grissett, but for this session, he overdubs several muted trumpets in spots. Grissett switches to electric piano for the leader's haunting ballad "The Question," a trio feature that also showcases Escoffery to good effect. The full quintet is heard in Harrell's lush miniature "Right as Rain," with the rich blend of his flügelhorn and Escoffery's tenor in the ensem