**** Andy Laster

INTERPRETATIONS OF LESSNESS

(Songlines)

Inspired by a Samuel Beckett story, saxophonist Andy Laster's latest features a quartet with impressive newcomer Cuong Vu on trumpet plus cellist Erik Friedlander and drummer Kenny Wolleson. The Beckett tale was assembled by picking sentences out of a hat. Although not random, Laster's compositions, especially "Earth Sky Body" and "Space of a Step," pick up the story's rhythms, serendipitous juxtapositions, and discontinuities. The music also captures the tragicomic tone of the fiction. "Pale Blue," where Wolleson's clippety-clop temple blocks mock Laster's anguished baritone sax, approaches existential vaudeville. In a quick-witted solo on "Earth Sky Body," trumpeter Vu spices his agile lines with a wide repertoire of squeals and strangled cries. And Friedlander is both lyrical and rhythmically compelling on his feature, "Other Nights Better Days." Two other sterling CDs by Laster (one of them also on Songlines) have already passed by virtually unnoticed. Don't let this one escape.

-- Ed Hazell