Wallace Roney's eighth album for the
HighNote label, 2019's
Blue Dawn-Blue Nights, finds the trumpeter collaborating with a cadre of young lions and balancing dusky after-hours warmth and propulsive post-bop modalism. The album comes three years after the similarly expansive
A Place in Time, which featured veterans
Gary Bartz,
Lenny White, and
Patrice Rushen. From that album, only
White returns here, playing on half of
Blue Dawn-Blue Nights. He and
Roney are also joined by an invigorating ensemble including
Roney's nephew drummer
Kojo Odu Roney, tenor saxophonist
Emilio Modeste, pianist
Oscar Williams II, and bassist
Paul Cuffari. Somewhat of a departure from
Roney's past work,
Blue Dawn-Blue Nights features songs written by his bandmates, along with a handful of deftly curated covers. The result is a surprisingly cohesive album that benefits from each player's unique yet clearly like-minded point-of-view.
Roney opens the album with keyboardist
Wayne Linsey's roiling, R&B-inflected "Bookendz." A longtime friend of
Roney's,
Linsey wrote songs for
Miles Davis, and "Bookendz" certainly brings to mind
Davis' fusion period with both
White and
Odu Roney supplying the song's kinetic rhythm. Shifting gears, the band eases into the yearning ballad "Why Should There Be Stars," which works as a showcase for
Roney's plaintive lyricism. Contrasting that is
White's funky "Wolfbane," a circular groover in which
Roney smears and glides against the drummer's dynamic percussion waves. Also compelling is the group's reading of
David Liebman's dissonant mid-tempo swinger "New Breed." Originally recorded by
Elvin Jones for his 1973 date
Mr. Jones, here the melody is played with Harmon-muted intensity by
Roney and
Modeste. Elsewhere, they sink into "Don't Stop Me Now," a slow-burning R&B slow jam culled from
Miles Davis' '80s period, and again evoke
Davis' late-'60s quintet on
Williams' impressionistic modal piece "In a Dark Room." Closing the album are two of
Modeste's compositions, beginning with the driving "Venus Rising" and finishing with the far-eyed "Elliptical," both of which benefit from
Roney and his band's burnished harmonic textures. ~ Matt Collar
