Rick McLaughlin Trio - Study of Light (2003/2020)

Not everything that saxophonist Russ Gershon's Boston-based Accurate Records has put out over the years is avant-garde. But if the company is best known for a particular approach to jazz, it is an inside/outside approach -- artists who can be mildly avant-garde, but are not hard-left iconoclasts and don't isolate themselves from "the tradition" (meaning straight-ahead jazz). Accurate isn't as radical as Knitting Factory, but at the same time, Gershon doesn't expect his artists to spend all their time regurgitating "I Got Rhythm" clichés. And if that inside/outside approach is your view of Accurate Records, Rick McLaughlin's Study of Light should be considered a quintessentially Accurate release. Like so many other Accurate titles, Study of Light (the acoustic bassist's first album as a leader) is a non-dogmatic effort that looks to both the inside and outside for inspiration. Actually, this post-bop/avant-garde CD (mildly avant-garde, that is) is more inside than outside -- probably about 80 percent inside, 20 percent outside. Forming a drumless trio with pianist Greg Burk and saxophonist Jeremy Udden, McLaughlin is often mindful of the ECM catalog -- and much of the playing tends to be ethereal and lyrical. McLaughlin and his colleagues provide their share of inviting, very digestible post-bop melodies, and the fact that they include Duke Ellington's "Isfahan" lets you know that they aren't oblivious to the tradition (far from it). But on Study of Light, a sophisticated, urbane melody can lead to some AACM-influenced outside improvisation -- that is, if the trio feels that it is appropriate. McLaughlin, Burk, and Udden keep their options open and by doing so demonstrate that jazz really can be "the sound of surprise" (to borrow a phrase coined by critic Whitney Balliett). Thoughtful and lucid yet spontaneous, Study of Light is a memorable outing for the New England bassist.