New York Hardbop Quintet - A Whisper Away (1998)

This group certainly lives up to its name, featuring five New York musicians (trumpeter Joe Magnarelli, tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon, pianist Keith Saunders, bassist Bim Strasberg, and drummer Clifford Barbaro) playing in a hard-boppish style. Not a revivalist group, the band actually interprets seven of their own originals and just one standard, "Everything I Have Is Yours." The music is swinging, but not simplistic or predictable. Magnarelli, Weldon, and Saunders have plenty of fine solos, with Strasberg and Barbaro offering stimulating support, and the music should easily please straight-ahead jazz fans.