Pianist Wolff has kept good company in his time, working with Cal Tjader and Cannonball Adderley in the 1970s and others like Art Farmer and Tom Harrell before concentrating on his own trio. He alternates between Los Angeles and New York and is much concerned with writing for the movies nowadays. This live set from nigh on 10 years ago teams him with trumpeter Isham, a sometime dabbler in fusion and another who is also into screen-writing. They're caught at Vitello's, an Italian restaurant-cum-club in Studio City, California and a pretty solemn, if not sepulchral, affair it is. Certainly not my idea of a club set!

Wolff's ‘Ballad Noir' is first up, a gloomy, chorded piece, Isham's entry evocative of late period Miles in the fragility of the sound, the strained notes and melancholy hesitations. ‘Lagniappe' which follows is more animated, consisting of a short, tumbling phrase on repeat, so is more adventurous, Isham's skittish runs seemingly teetering on the edge of oblivion. Wayne Shorter's ‘Fall' is slow, over a walking bass line, the note clusters elegiac. ‘Nefertiti', also by Shorter, perks up a bit with Wolff stretching out a little while his ‘The Conversation' is surprisingly restrained as if any communication was to be in whispers. Clever perhaps, pristine often, portentous certainly; how one wishes for someone to light the fuse and set things alight. Wolff is clearly a skilled and harmonically advanced practitioner and his trio pals know their stuff, so this feels like an opportunity missed to me. Still, the audience seemed receptive.