Greg Chako - Where We Find Ourselves (2022)

While Greg Chako's duet album Two's Company, Three's a Crowd was all tuxedos and hotel lounges, Where We Find Ourselves pulls out the berets and bongos for a little more of a post-bop sound. The stiffness is reduced in favor of a little more flow. The sound is essentially mainstream, but with touches of Latin and Indian in the instrumentation and feel from time to time. The inclusion of a full band necessarily reduces the time that Chako spends being at the forefront, with other players taking turns at solos (trombonist Pat Hallaran blows at least a few nice ones) and the band as a whole turning some very nice contemporary melodic lines in tandem. With the arrangements being done primarily by Chako, the horns don't always get the full round that one might hear in other arrangements of these pieces, but the sound still seems to work for the ensemble. The music is quietly understated, but with a few flights of fancy still built in. It's not groundbreaking, but it's good, and it's heartfelt in both composition and performance. Worth a spin. ~ Adam Greenberg