JAZZ

Blicher Hemmer Gadd: Omara

C-nut Records

JJJJ

From the first, wheedling cadences of Michael Blicher’s tenor sax as it slides into the louche shuffle of the title track, this is an album that effortlessly manages to give soul jazz, that sometimes maligned sub-genre, a great name.

Recorded live during a European tour and featuring mainly Blicher’s compositions, this trio works up some irresistibly funky grooves. Steve Gadd, a drummer whose credits range from Paul Simon and Steely Dan to Chick Corea, discharges a clamorous, steel-pan-accented solo in that first track, while Hemmer’s Hammond organ slides and gurgles its way slinkily through the old standard Elijah Rock and in the strut of They Had No Roses and Ifiwerea Cow.

Blicher’s sax ranges sassily through

Three Grains of Salt and murmurs its way over Gadd’s stealthy drubbing in the languorous sway of On the Porch, while the trio signs off in the highest of spirits in Korean BBQ.N