New Release: Wake Up Call from Rick Roe

 

Wake Up Call from Rick Roe
Label: Cold Plunge Records
Release Date:  December 19, 2025
Websites: https://www.gregghilljazz.com
https://www.roejazz.com

Pianist, leader and arranger Rick Roe, while in the company of Nate Winn on drums, Robert Hurst on bass, and Marcus Elliot on tenor and soprano saxophones, has cultivated a nouveau straight-ahead jazz style on his newest addition Wake Up Call:  The Music of Greg Hill.  Roe and company make alternations to jazz composer Greg Hill's compositions that set these tracks along a path of spiraling aerials and stimulating improvisations.  The main course of the album is the window brightening hues of "Sunspiration," escalated by the swinging fluctuations throttling the title track, and then rolling into the stargazing harmonies of "Wide River."  

The bopping beats of "The Return of Mr. Pea" propel Roe's jutting keys and Elliot's zigzagging tenor into a nouveau stratosphere.  For the dessert, Winn's agile and crisp drumming along “La Cancion” lay a platform for Hurst's vibrating pluckings on the bass, stoking the sprightly sparks firing off from Roe's keys, and the suave furls of Elliot's sax sashaying a Latinesque tremor.  "Hyperbarity" is the most diverse piece oscillating between the dramatically intense and mysteriously haunting passages contrasting the hyper joyful and dancing interaction of Roe's keys, Hurst's bass, Winn's drums, and Elliot's flapping sax.  The piece serves as an after-hours cocktail depicting both the experience of sipping a bubbly cocktail and the dark head-throbbing that is bound to come by the forthcoming hang-over.  The recording does not end there but with the uplifting, morning-after, saccharine-rich arrangement "Double Play."  Tweaking melodies, layering and sowing new harmonic schemes, and making complimenting alterations to chord structures, there is a genuine sense that Roe and company collaborated extensively on these tracks.  Each member of the quartet displays a strength of swing and straight-ahead jazz webbing, quick reflexes, and a spirit for visionary phrasing.