Tom Harrell: Colours of a Dream

Prolific trumpeter Tom Harrell breaks out of his regular quintet format with a two-basses-no-piano sextet that brims with top drawer New York talent, including saxophonists Wayne Escoffery and Jaleel Shaw, bassist Ugonna Okegwo, and drummer Jonathan Blake. That the group's other bassist is the hugely (and justifiably) in-demand Esperanza Spalding is a palpable tribute to Harrell's reputation as a composer and bandleader. Replacing the piano with another bass is a daring move, but it adds huge bottom end to the sextet's sound, with the top end inhabited by Harrell's gorgeously taut arrangements for the three horns. Spalding's delicate vocal contributions, mostly of the wordless variety (with the exception of Velejar, a haunting bossa nova sung in Portuguese), scatter fairy dust over the whole swinging affair. tomharrell.com