ALBUM REVIEWS /JAZZ

CHARLIE HADEN QUARTET WEST “Now Is the Hour” ** 1/2 Verve-Gitanes Jazz

This is the fifth Quartet West album and the third that looks to nostalgia for its inspiration. Graced with a particularly hip selection of material, string arrangements written by pianist Alan Broadbent and a number of impassioned solos, this is the most romantic of the three recordings and certainly the most interestingly packaged.

Tunes including Lennie Tristano’s lament for Charlie Parker, “Requiem,” Bud Powell’s “Blue Pearl” and Lee Konitz’s “Palo Alto” make for hot and cool contrast, as bebop follows ballad, occasionally interlaced by one of Haden’s own weighty melodic numbers. The quartet works its usual magic, matching Broadbent’s harmonically lush, bop-intensive play with tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts’ cream-topped tone and impassioned improvs, both played against simple support of Haden and drummer Larance Marable.

But not everything is as pretty. Victor Young’s theme to the 1955 Humphrey Bogart-Gene Tierney film “The Left Hand of God” sleeps on Haden’s plodding bass theme, which hangs lazily against heart-tugging strings. The same tedium reoccurs on the title tune. While this album certainly ranks with Quartet West’s other sentimental journeys, repeated trips down memory lane are becoming tiresome. Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good, recommended), four stars (excellent).