Guitarist Koby Hayon is another of the many excellent musicians to emerge from Israel over the past decade. This album shows him in a modern jazz guitar trio setting, performing with Kermit Driscoll on bass and Jerome Morris on drums. Although Driscoll is one of Bill Frisell's regular collaborators, Hayon has developed his own sound that shows knowledge of past masters while developing his own voice on both electric and acoustic guitars. The trio plays together with great cohesion, with all three members interacting well, and Driscoll and Morris providing excellent support when Hayon steps out to solo. The opening track “Vertigo" displays all of these attributes, with the group playing the complex and shifting melody then moving seamlessly into a fluid improvised section. This song and most of the others on the album are original compositions save the band's very subtle arrangement of The Beatles “Norwegian Wood" and the brief “Galbi" which explores the groups narrative sense. Narrative interpretation of music is particularly important to the group as the songs flow like smaller chapters in a cohesively constructed book of music. The music on this album is played at a consistently high level, and is warmly recommended to fans of modern mainstream jazz guitar. Gemini—amazon.com Send comments to Tim.
