From the beginning of the album's first piece, Herbie Hancock's I Have a Dream," Hall dramatically demonstrates his mastery of what might be called integrational drumming. The dynamics of his pops, snaps, cymbal splashes and ingenious divisions of time rise and fall with the intensity of the performance as trumpeter Terell Stafford, saxophonist Tim Warfield, Jr. and pianist Bruce Barth solo. For all its vigor, there is also subtlety in Hall's playing, and in the concepts in the album. Hall's drumming transition from Conversion Song" into Orchids" is a case in point. It creates the effect of a two-part suite and sets up bassist Rodney Whitaker's superb solo. The title tune is the shortest in the album and, with the exhilaration of its collective chance-taking, the freest. The longest, Jabali," combines harmonic freedom, in the Ornette Coleman sense, with traditional swing and a rare instance of silence from Hall while the horns sing his closing melody.
Stafford and Hall are mutual admirers, with cause, and sidemen in one another's bands. Stafford reaffirms here that he is one of the most important trumpeters to emerge in the new century. Warfield, a swaggering tenor saxophonist, doubles on soprano and has fine moments on each horn. Barth, often type-cast as a mainstream post-bop pianist, demonstrates that he can go as far out as Hall, a former aerospace engineer. A member of the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hall is accomplished in composition and arranging. All of the music on the CD is his except for the Hancock piece, Warfield's joyous Tin Soldier and Whitaker's For Rockelle," a ballad based on My Funny Valentine." Into The Light was released late in 2009. It took me a while to get around to it. I'm glad that I did.