This review appears in the October December 2014 issue of The New York City Jazz Record.

0002463490_10Steve Cardenas
Melody in a Dream (Sunnyside)

By David R. Adler

Though his output as a leader is somewhat sparse, guitarist Steve Cardenas brings a vibrancy and a shrewd air of restraint to every outing — the same qualities he’s shown as a sideman with Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Steve Swallow, Ben Allison and many others. On Melody in a Dream, his fourth album since 2000, he includes pieces by Motian, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver and Lee Konitz along with several originals and a standard ballad, “Street of Dreams.” Relying on a modern electric sound full of fluidity and bite, he swings effortlessly in the company of bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Joey Baron. Trumpeter Shane Endsley guests on three tracks.

The trio leads off in a rubato vein with “Just One More Thing” (an oblique comment on “All the Things You Are”), establishing a textural subtlety and openness that persists throughout the date. The original “Ode to Joey,” which marks Endsley’s first appearance, is freer and more assertive, with shifting rhythmic foundations but a clear compositional path. Baron’s “Broken Time,” a bright trio number, involves the players in a round of continual trading — a taste of what’s to come on the Konitz classic “Subconscious-Lee,” where Endsley spars with the leader until they nail the melody together at the end. Monk’s barebones theme “Teo,” a brief but tension-building duo workout for guitar and drums, has a similar quality of spontaneous grit.

Having absorbed the spirit of Paul Motian’s compositions firsthand as a band member, Cardenas brings an unimpeachable authority to the late drummer’s “Once Around the Park” and “In the Year of the Dragon.” On the former he gives Morgan the melody role; on the latter he invites Endsley back to close out the session in a relaxed medium swing feel.

These Motian pieces have a dark and insinuating quality that sets them apart, yet Cardenas plays them straightforwardly as material from the jazz canon, not far removed from Horace Silver’s “Peace.” That is Cardenas in a nutshell: he plugs in and plays, doesn’t overthink, and yet offhandedly summons a deep and meaningful sense of history with every album.

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