The Steve Haines Quintet: Beginner's Mind

Bassist Steve Haines is a well-kept secret — or at least he had been up until the release of Beginner's Mind. Haines had been a session man for over a decade, and this is his debut. Recording with a fine group of peers in tenor saxophonist David Lown, Chip Crawford on piano, Rob Smith on trumpet, and drummer Tom Taylor, Haines weaves together a fairly magical set of originals and interpretations of standards. Haine's crew is sprightly in approach, whether they are exploring modalism as they do on "The North Shore," or an old gospel tune such as on Tim Young's arrangement of "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child," on which Crawford plays contrapuntal chord patterns on both hands and Haines punches the time out to keep it all mirroring back to Taylor. By the time the horns enter, the tune has become a full-on near-bop blues. "Shoshin," with its Bill Evans-like harmonic explorations of Eastern line and scale, is remarkable in its quiet intensity, and a cover of "Spring Is Here" sets the entire record off in a gauzy yet affirmative dreamscape, with the piano and bass strolling ever so slowly around one another to check not only pace and sonance, but also to check sense impression. It's a gorgeous little album that will endear anyone who hears it to Haines.