The title of pianist Mike Holober’s album is candid and evocative. This is music that also moves, but on its own soul-variant track, as pianist/composer/arranger Holober engineers his own “train of thought.” For various reasons associated with the music business as it exists today, the locomotive was rather slow in pulling out of the station (the album was actually recorded
in 1996), but those who have their tickets punched won’t mind the delay, as the music is as fresh and thought-provoking as it was the day that Holober and his colleagues put it on tape. Holober conceived the album with trains in mind, fashioning “one musical idea after another, hitching them together like cars for a boisterous engine to pull, the whole sizable forward-moving entity a creative dynamo to be enjoyed.” The general feeling is one of irrepressible motion, which is exactly as Holober mapped out the enterprise. It’s an invigorating ride that builds momentum with the bustling “Jump Down, Spin Around” and keeps chugging steadily through seven more of Holober’s descriptive compositions, each one sharp and stylish, with few unwelcome detours along the way (“Heart of the Matter,” featuring tenors Tim Ries and Charles Pillow, could be said to veer off-course, but that’s one man’s opinion). Naturally, any train needs a dependable crew, and Holober surely has one here. Drummer John Riley stokes the furnace while everyone else takes care of business, assuring a relatively smooth and trouble-free excursion. Besides Ries and Pillow, the intrepid soloists include Holober, Riley, altos Jon Gordon and Dave Pietro, baritone Steve Kenyon, trumpeters Scott Wendholt and Joe Magnarelli, trombonist Pat Hallaran, guitarist Dave Gilmore and bassist Ron Carter (featured with Holober on “Waltz Medium”). The ensemble is keen and able, Holober an attentive conductor who makes sure the train is securely on track.

— Jack Bowers
© Cadence, April 2005