Drummer McClenty Hunter Jr knows all about the groove roots of hard bop – he started out in gospel music, has played with Lou Donaldson and Curtis Fuller, and includes Coltrane's ‘Countdown’ and Herbie Nichols ‘Blue Chopsticks’ on the tracklist of The Groove Hunter, his debut as a leader. Connoisseurs of the method will love the relaxed insistence of Hunter's swing sound, driving the brassy urgency of Eddie Henderson's trumpet lines, Donald Harrison's sweet/sour alto, and the early-Coltrane soulfulness of tenorist Stacy Dillard. ‘Blue Chopsticks’ erupts in exclamations of staccato bebop, interspersed with fastwalking swing and winding up with pianist Eric Reed swapping fours with Hunter at breathless speed. Wayne Shorter's ‘The Big Push’ arrives on a bright horns fanfare, dissolving quickly into a pithy Donald Harrison alto break. Reed is sleek and shapely on Hunter's misty but eventually upbeat ballad ‘Autumn’, Stevie Wonder's ‘That Girl’ is a soul-jazz vehicle for guitarist Dave Stryker's Wes Montgomery octaveruns, and ‘Countdown’ is mostly a squirming, sinewy duo jam for Hunter and a thrillingly untrammelled Harrison. A little more of that looseness might have injected more surprises into The Groove Hunter's sometimes generic feel, but this is a fine line-up playing music they plainly love.