Quiet Revolution

“All Across the City”

(Newvelle Records)

Quiet Revolution was the perfect title for the Ben Allison Trio’s season one Newvelle offering. Bassist Allison teamed up with saxophonist/clarinetist Ted Nash and guitarist Steve Cardenas in a group that takes its cue from reedist Jimmy Giuffre’s drummerless trios of the 1950s and ’60s. In addition to tunes by Giuffre, the trio also delves into the work of another “quiet revolutionary,” guitarist Jim Hall, as well as compositions by each of the trio mates inspired by those men and the eras in which they thrived. The trio’s version of Hall’s “All Across the City” begins with a stark and lovely acoustic guitar solo by Cardenas, who’s soon joined by Allison’s unrushed pizzicato. Nash’s lush, cinematic tenor adds a noirish feel to the proceedings, the trio conjuring a lonely daybreak in the city as an apt aural accompaniment to the album’s impressionistic cover image.