One aspect of the composing of Anthony Braxton is that it is adaptable and/or not necessarily specific to any instrument. This is an innovation bassist Joe Fonda, a longtime participant in Braxton's ensembles as well as a former president of his Tri-Centric Foundation, must have picked up. In the notes to his latest album he describes how Jeff Lederer, hired to be a saxophonist for a new set of music, instead said the pieces felt better suited to clarinets and flutes. Fonda was amenable and thus we have the somewhat unusual frontline of the aforementioned winds and the bassoon of Michael Rabinowitz. Fonda and drummer Harvey Sorgen — partners since before the turn of the new millennium — provide a strong foundation for this twist on chamber jazz. And while Fonda has also previously worked with both Lederer and Rabinowitz separately, this particular quartet debuts here.

Fonda's writing is based of the deep, earthy swing so intrinsic to his playing. This is heard in the loping "Deja Vu for DC" and "Magic (for Perry Robinson)". A more delicate, moodier side of Fonda marks the set's ballads, "Soon to Know", "MGJ" and "What Do You Think". A third facet, the conceptualist, becomes apparent in the album's two highlights, both aptly titled: "Fast" and "Mosaic", the latter closing the date and its longest excursion. The first splits the ensemble into two compelling halves: bass and bassoon, flute and drums, pitting a percolating groove from the former against a complex melodic line by the latter, sounding like something out of Prokofiev's Peter and The Wolf. The second could have just as convincingly been called "Kaleidoscope" for its shifting character and tempi. On both especially. but throughout the release, Lederer's prescient notion about instrumentation is well justified.

This is a fascinating assemblage, and it would be interesting to hear what Fonda would compose for it next, already knowing its potential.