Pity any young trumpeter having to play in the shadows of Wynton, Miles and Louis. All the innovation's been done, all the peaks have already been reached. Still, there's always room for good music. Alex Sipiagin's second recording, "Steppin' Zone," may not propel him up there with the masters, but it will find him on many a CD player again and again.
Sipiagin trained as a classical trumpeter in the Russian conservatory and symphony orchestra system but, after winning an international jazz competition, he relocated to the United States. There he joined the Mingus Big Band and then slipped in with the post-Marsalis generation of young jazz lions. These players look to the past for inspiration, mining the late '50s and '60s hard-bop sound for overlooked nuggets and forgotten pathways. They are definitely traditionalist, but very, very good at it.
On "Steppin' Zone," Scott Colley on bass and drummer Jeff "Tain" Waits click into a tight percussive drive that keeps the bop-oriented pieces moving at a rapid clip. The horn work of sax player Chris Potter and Sipiagin jump-starts the lead lines on every piece, after which they trade solos constructed carefully over the tricky chord changes and rhythmic subtleties. David Kikoski on piano tosses in well-timed chords and adds well-crafted solos. Even on the two ballads and the appropriately titled "Spacing," which dips into modal disharmonies, the songs have a forward-leaning feel that shows off the musicians' fast-fingered abilities to good effect.