There’s a lot of good intention and successful realisation here, so don’t be put off by a transcription howler in the second bar of the album. (I recently heard an Ellington re-creation with a similar wrong note, as if people play their charts without ever listening again to the originals!) Philion is a young bassist-educator based in Chicago, as are the other members of this group. Two pieces, ‘Better Git It In Your Soul’ and ‘Self-Portrait In Three Colours’, overlap with the recent Jazz At Berlin Philharmonic tribute (reviewed in Jazzwise 276) but, despite this being a studio recording, the energy and spirit of Philion’s versions is not outclassed. ‘Self-Portrait’ is one of the items with original input in the arrangement, the theme being played in canon; others such as ‘Pithecanthropus Erectus’, ‘Haitian Fight Song’ and ‘Remember Rockefeller At Attica’ are expanded from Mingus’ quintet recordings, while ‘Once Upon A Time There Was A Holding Company Called Old America’ is successfully scaled down for Philion’s 10-piece. The ensemble playing has the necessary balance between looseness and accuracy, and there are standout solos by Russ Johnson on ‘Self-Portrait’, Rajiv Halim on ‘Prayer For Passive Resistance’ and Geof Bradfield’s bass-clarinet on ‘Meditations On A Pair Of Wire-Cutters’. One of the trombonists is more articulate than the other but, though Philion’s bass lacks the articulation and accuracy of Mingus’, his partnership with the widely experienced drummer Dana Hall is impressive. If this makes you want to hear the originals again, then fair enough, but these reinterpretations are sufficiently compelling in their own right.