Technical skill and spontaneity are essential in a strong jazz soloist, but the ability to listen and process information on the fly is just as crucial. Amsterdam’s aptly named ALL EARS embodies this talent: led by pianist Michiel Braam and tenor saxophonist Frans Vermeerssen, the sextet plays from a repertoire of pithy, carefully arranged themes that reference nearly every era of jazz history. The rhythm section (bassist Wilbert de Joode and drummer Michael Vatcher) and the rest of the front line (reedist Frank Gratkowski and trumpeter Herb Robertson) deliver tart counterpoint with precision and snap, sometimes hurtling forward like a hypercharged big band and sometimes swinging with the soulful grace of a tight hard-bop outfit. All Ears is also a killer free-jazz group; for example, Vermeerssen’s “18 Rabbit,” from Foamy Wife Hum / Line (BBB, 2003), expresses movement with pops, snorts, and whinnies, sketching out the melodic progression in dotted lines. Each musician controls a certain number of pieces from the group’s songbook and can call on one at any time, even disrupting a tune in progress with a new composition; hearing the sextet adapt without getting tangled up is half the pleasure. They’re not as deliberately self-sabotaging as Amsterdam’s great ICP Orchestra, but they’re a similarly complete jazz group; they play with time like the bellows of an accordion and change the tone of the music as easily as if they were shuffling through a stack of Pantone color samples. –Peter Margasak
