Some records can be enjoyed from the fi rst note, and this is one. Taped live at an off-the-beaten-track eatery in Arizona, it unites four postbop crowd pleasers in an unpretentious set of blues and R&B classics that swings harder than a pole-dancer’s tassles. Gadd must take credit for this with an almost Blakey-like display of steadily uplifting rhythmic power that keeps DeFrancesco and Bollenback at their funkiest and Cuber’s baritone sax at its strongest. And nobody could quarrel with a set-list including ‘Back at the Chicken Shack’ (by Jimmy Smith), ‘Sister Sadie’ (by Horace Silver), ‘Undecided’ (as arranged by Brother Jack McDuff), ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ (at the early Miles Davis tempo) and a fine gospelly Bob Dylan theme, ‘Watchin’ the River Flow’. But for two low-key bonus tracks, featuring only Gadd’s brushes and the Norah Jones-ish vocals of Edie Brickell, this nourishing album would have collected the full fi ve stars.