Sound StoriesAlternate Side ****

Trombonists in contemporary jazz are a rare species, and they're generally found lurking in the trombone sections of big bands. That's certainly how Marhsall Gilkes has been best known thus far, as a regular with some of the biggest big bands in the business, including the Maria Schneider Orchestra and Cologne's WDR Big Band. But on Sound Stories, his third small group release, Gilkes shows that he is much more than just a section man. The compositions are all his own – sinuous, Balkan-inflected melodies that turn on a pin – and his deft writing for two horns proves that he has been paying attention around Schneider. The fact that the other horn belongs to Donny McCaslin, one of the most inventive of the younger generation of New York saxophonists, makes for a record that balances the written and the improvised with skill, vitality and even a little humour. marshallgilkes.com