Jazz review: Jim Ketch

Most mainstream jazz these days remains rooted in the 1960s, a time noted for hard bop, pentatonic scales, modal harmonies, increasing use of African and South American influences and the introduction of jazz-rock and electronic keyboards.

Jim Ketch's "A Distant View" (Summit) fits solidly in this groove - like echoes from a golden age. Ketch, a trumpet and flugelhorn player who heads the Jazz Studies program at UNC-Chapel Hill and also directs the N.C. Jazz Repertory Orchestra, projects a bright, optimistic sound on his instruments while he maintains an articulate flow of ideas. His quintet - with tenor saxophonist Dave Finucane, pianist Stephen Anderson, bassist Jeffry Eckels and drummer Ross Pederson - is an ideal vehicle for the ongoing refinement of modern mainstream jazz.

While electric piano is employed on Roy Hargrove's "Strasbourg/St. Denis" and Ketch's "Savannah's Swinging" is a cooking Latin tune, the remainder of the performances are strictly acoustic and straight-ahead.

Ketch's title tune evokes a reflective mood through the use of certain scales and harmonic colors. Tom Harrell's "Sail Away" inhabits some of the same emotional space but is more lighthearted. Jerome Kern's "Long Ago and Far Away," Dewey Redman's angular "Dewey's Tune" and Marcus Robert's "You Won't Believe Me When I Tell You This" are hard-hitting performances steeped in the ethos of the Blue Note and Riverside record labels of the '60s.

Ketch's sidemen are a versatile team. Finucane, who teaches at Duke and UNC, has an aggressive, light-and-dark, stop-and-go approach reminiscent of the late tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson. Anderson, who also teaches at UNC and has recorded two trio albums on the Summit label, is a deliberate-sounding player who ranges from delicate, fluid lines to slamming, McCoy Tyner-like eruptions. Eckels and Pederson are as solid and adaptable as many better known bass-and-drums combinations.