The legacy of Mike Mainieri’s and the late Michael Brecker’s Steps Ahead, one of the most inventive groups in 1980s jazz-rock, was delightfully rekindled in a reunion band at Ronnie Scott’s in London this summer. Here’s a stirring orchestral angle on the group’s classic material, rearranged by Michael Abene for Cologne’s famous WDR Big Band, with the sleekly swinging vibraphonist Mainieri still in the driving seat. Don Grolnick’s laconic, Wayne Shorter-like Pools and the soul-funky Blue Montreux fire up scalding tenor-sax forays from Bill Evans (one of the best Breckeresque specialists in this idiom, and the album’s solo star), while the beautiful, country-tinged Self Portrait gets a sumptuous Abene arrangement and gracefully urgent solos from guitarist Chuck Loeb, Mainieri and Evans. The whippy, playful Oops features some thrilling uptempo tenor badinage between Evans and the WDR’s Paul Heller after Mainieri’s glittering vibes break. Maybe there isn’t quite the spontaneous intimacy of July’s quintet at Ronnie’s, but this set has plenty enough horn-power, enthusiasm and improv invention to make up for that.
