Metamorphosen
Artist: Branford Marsalis Quartet
Label:  Marsalis Music
Time: 9 Tracks / 63 mins
 
Marsalis is as much a brand as a family name in the jazz world. Branford first came to the attention of the world at large with his brother Wynton, when they played on Sting’s first post-Police foray into sophisticated adult pop, Dream of the Blue Turtles.
 
Both the length of their time together and the democratization of the track writing suggest that Marsalis is a good bandleader to play for, and the quartet shows a tight understanding of each other here. Each brings his character to the disc, starting with drummer Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, who tops and tails it with his frenetic “Return of the Jitney Man” and the nicely built ten-minute “Samo.” 
 
Pianist Joey Calderazzo gets most minutes for his two compositions, and for me, these are the disc’s stylish highlights. Slow enough to show his expressive playing, “The Blossom of Parting” is classic jazz. There is enough beauty in its flowing melody and Marsalis’s soloing over his theme, to make the rhythm section superfluous at the start. He is just as melodic and atmospheric on “The Last Goodbye,” which has a similarly French feel and also pushes the ten-minute mark.
 
Bassist Eric Revis’s short, stilted minor-key “Abe Vigoda” is a little too angular for me, having little sense of either melody or direction, but his “Sphere,” which starts off with a similarly spiky riff, comes into its own when the theme has become subconscious and the band is interplaying over it. He also gets a third track, which is basically a three-minute bass solo that leads neatly into “Samo.”
 
Thelonius Monk’s “Rhythm-a-Ning” has a neat pace change towards the end. More importantly, its strong theme provides for some more extended solos, while showing as well as any track the close understanding that has grown between these players over their last decade together. 
 
This disc is beautifully balanced between a streak of faster hard-bop that shows their skills, mid-tempo pieces that allow for flowing interplay, and lyrical works that prove how less is so often more.
 
Derek Walker