American pianist George Colligan has spent more than two decades enhancing the work of famous leaders, but as well as appearing on more than 100 albums, he makes impressive ones of his own. The usual jazz-piano suspects (Corea, Monk, Tyner) influence Colligan, and he likes the deviously fast-moving melodies of beboppish modal music, evident here as the band rocket through the Giant-Steps-like Whiffle Ball and the climbing-and-diving Effortless.
But although the title track’s bright, tumbling theme suggests the same route at first, the uninhibited young saxophonist Nicole Glover takes off from Colligan’s rolling chordwork with wild, free-form wails, and the leader catches the mood in jabbing, splintery dissonances against Pat Metheny bassist Linda Oh’s surefootedly eloquent solo. Southwestern Silence is a captivatingly unjazzy melody with a cat-and-mouse piano/bass theme; Empty resembles a swelling and fading Django Bates anthem; The Nash suggests a more urgent, high-intensity Thelonious Monk.
More Powerful is an acoustic jazz album to its roots, but it’s a very long way from predictable.
