Caught The James Farm at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley featuring Joshua Redman, Aaron Parks, Matt Penman, and Eric Harland.  They played all originals, different compositions by different members of the band.  Songs with names like "Pollywog," "Goats," "Voyager," "Startalk" and "Cartoon." Stellar players.  Songs morphed, changing tempos, dynamics, covering vast sonic territories.  Occasionally pianist and saxophone would pick up the same line, play some wicked head (or tail as it were) and you suddenly saw the structure admidst the fluidity of the sound. 

Some songs were surprising in their straight-up-ness, the drummer playing with the beat instead of around it. Don't hear this too much among jazz monsters like these guys. It felt odd, to hear staight up beats and simpler progressions right after off-the-richter compositions of interwoven syncopation.  But even during these straight up moments, someone would bust out, either rhythmically or a-melodically. The pianist in particular was all over strange transpositions and non-conforming scales.

Whoever was on the lights did a good job, these brief fadeouts between songs to switch colors.  Usually don't think about lights and jazz, but this lighting was good, subtle yet dramatic.

Here's a shot of the drummer from a show in Milan earlier this year. He was wearing shades at the Jazz Alley show too -- must be his deal.