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Richard Cole: Shade

Saxophonist Richard Cole’s third disc as a leader takes a patchwork approach, varying hard-edged bop romps with sunny standards and cool contemporary fusion. The personnel is equally varied, as over a dozen of Seattle’s better jazz players drift in and out, casting Cole’s soulful tenor and quicksilver soprano in ever-changing light. Randy Brecker adds star power and some tasty trumpet to four tracks, but the most effective setting is an organically dispersed and reconstituted take on “Beautiful Love,” with Cole in a cooperative quartet.

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