Torontolive

Since Michael Vlatkovich's music often displays a puckish sense of humor, it's not a huge surprise this live date featuring his regular quartet plus guests David Mott and Tom Walsh sports a bottom-heavy lineup of two trombones, tenor and baritone saxes, and bass/drums. Trumpet fans, steer clear—ain't nothin' for you here.

The sextet hit the ground running with the knotty theme of "Red Leather" before Anders Swanson's bass is off to the walking races and Chris Garcia drops bombs behind Vlatkovich's solo. The piece mysteriously fades out (tape problem, maybe?) after four minutes when it's nowhere near done. "A3BFGI3NOR2ST4" opens as abstractly as its title before a theme takes shape incrementally and the trombones create an almost polka feel behind the harmonized saxes' melody. It roams around, changes form and focus, but remains organic in conception, and that's not a bad capsule description of the music throughout Toronto Live.

If Vlatkovich has a model here, it most likely is from the Charles Mingus mode, where both the compositions and improvisations move through various sections. The key is the musicians listening and reacting to each other — there's relatively little soloist-plus-rhythm section playing here without someone (or everyone) interjecting and developing some kind of contrapuntal supporting theme.

So "Why Don't You See Me?" starts blowsy noir blues that quickly breaks down into pointillist squiggles before setting off on Bill Plake's tenor solo. The "Ten On No Net" medley starts with a bright theme quickly left behind — this crew doesn't take much time on any of the opening melodies — to embark on a meandering voyage that encompasses a tempo downshift to launch Swanson into a strong solo and a mellifluous ballad ensemble topped by Vlatkovich's beautifully rounded tone. That's maybe half of what happens in the first half of the medley, which should give an idea about how much goes on within each piece here.

Garcia's punctuations support the sharp, winding, opening melody to "Walzer Tanken," and there's a funky groove working for a while behind a muted Vlatkovich solo on "27529," complete with a few semi-duck quacks. Swanson takes a brief solo, then shifts to arco and drops into a supporting role when the horns enter with pointillist dots.

Mott and Walsh are fully integrated into the music and everyone is in fine form — Plake's sharp, staccato, tenor runs provide an excellent contrast to Vlatkovich, who's more into post-bop broad melodic blats than bop runs. There's not much more to say except that Toronto Live is full of adventurous, probing music that will keep listeners on their toes as much as Vlatkovich and company undoubtedly were when they created it.