Third Eye  (Audio CD) 
by Ben Allison & Medicine Wheel

Bassist Ben Allison is one of a few jazzers who has successfully reinvigorated interest in long-gone bop-era enigma Herbie Nichols. His playful mix of catchy melodies and structure-testing excursions makes him good company for Nichols, and here Allison presents a great sextet of musicians who share his fondness for the wavy line separating "inside" postbop melodies and solos and the more "outside" elements of expressive soloing, hidden harmonies, and high-energy execution. The combination of saxophonist Michael Blake and Ted Nash's horns with Tomas Ulrich's cello and Allison's bass makes for great chatter, with the horns dancing through each other as the strings lay down a grain--or go spastic--in proportion to the overall mood. Third Eye starts coolly enough, with a Lounge Lizards-ish set of "Four Folk Songs." But then the band's off, galloping and halting and pouncing through tunes that have all the architecture of the post-Wayne Shorter melodicists and all the abandon of players schooled equally in the import of intricate composition and maximal expression. --Andrew Bartlett