Billy Childs - Rebirth

The Guardian 80

(Mack Avenue)

The Grammy-winning American pianist and composer Billy Childs is a contemporary-classical composer as much as a jazz artist, but Rebirth means exactly what it says. Much of this scintillating set is a return to the snaking quickfire hard-bop Childs played in the 70s, albeit infused with all the musics he has visited so intelligently since, and his partners here include alto saxist Steve Wilson, Charles Lloyd drummer Eric Harland, and Chilean singer Claudia Acuña. The snappy, twisting Backwards Bop never lets up, whether in Childs’ cannily paced and sleekly phrased piano improv against Harland’s whipcrack accents, or Wilson’s swerving, Art Pepperish alto solo. Acuña handles both a Flora Purim-like agility and a folk-choral harmonic role on the multi-generic title track, Alicia Olatuja’s voice is smokily fraught on the pleading ballad Stay, and the much-covered Windmills of Your Mind is drily inscribed in Wilson’s middle register before acquiring a swelling and fading intensity driven by the exciting Harland. It’s ultra-sophisticated, gracefully crafted jazz, but full of dynamism.