Label: SteepleChase, 2020

Personnel - Noah Preminger: tenor saxophone; Dave Liebman: soprano saxophone; Gary Versace: piano; Michael Feinberg: bass; Ian Froman: drums.

The seventh outing as a leader from rising star bassist/composer Michael Feinberg offers an accomplished set of tunes and features a well-versed lineup that includes multi-generational saxophonists - veteran master Dave Liebman and today’s revitalizing force Noah Preminger - plus a cohesive rhythm section in which he links up with Gary Versace on piano and Ian Froman on drums.

A notorious swinger, Feinberg demonstrates to have a warm and easily appealing bass playing that sparks with a lovely glow, while composition-wise, he melds tradition and modern jazz sensibilities with an organic disposition.

The leadoff track “Louisville”, named after the city where the boxer Muhammad Ali was born, is the perfect example, sliding between epic modal jazz and blithe Latin-tinged passages. The rhythmically tense melodies unleashed by Liebman propose an avant-garde coating, while Preminger, no less explorative, appraises idioms loaded with verbal elasticity and quick-wit. For his part, Versace, who has a gift for spontaneous melody, sequences rhythmic figures with nimble fingering.

“Cairo”, besides boasting a catchy theme, provides engrossing improvisations, while the ballad “Tyron”, honoring Nina Simone, features the saxophonists and the pianist in a reciprocal relationship.

Bouncing and bopping with optimism, “Pontiac” is illustrated with a ravishing unison melody in the head and sinewy solos. Whereas Preminger cites Mingus’ famous intro of “All the Things You Are”, Liebman goes fully Coltrane here with only drums as a support. Less extravagantly, Versace goes with super-articulated moves. Later, all three improvisers take part in energizing trade offs with Froman, who often evokes Elvin Jones’ phraseology in the course of his bold pronouncements.

In "Hamlet", the frenzied horns are on the loose again, embarking on stunning, sometimes brusque solo turns. This is a seductive piece that refers to the birthplace of John Coltrane and where it’s impossible not to go with the leisurely swinging flow provided by the rhythm team. The idea repeats on the magnetic closing cut, “Nogales”, a tribute to Charles Mingus, whose bravado and danceability reinforce the album’s sense of triumph. The vivid debate between the pair of saxophonists is impregnated with steep diagonals and unending tangents.

Feinberg’s music is as much straightforward as it is extraordinarily appealing. From Where We Came leaves an indelible impression.