This cross-cultural endeavor, pairing the Beppe Aliprandi Trio (Pietro Leveratto on bass, Also Romano on drums) with Karl Berger's vibraphone and piano may have seemed audacious, even outrageous given Berger's penchant for outside play, but his presence as a companion to Aliprandi's reed and woodwind playing is welcome and conceptually sound. On the opener, "Maybe Tomorrow #2," Aliprandi traces the melody around a 7/8 time signature from the rhythm section, blowing slowly on the accents and changes until Berger leaps into the tune double time on the vibes flying through a solo that's full of striking arpeggios and embossed accents for Romano. The pair takes it out at bebop tempo on the lyric and end on the one. The title track is a Latin-flavored blues that borders on a tango. Leveratto's striding, swooning bassline is what gives the tune its legs. Aliprandi mournfully plays a lonesome melody as Berger fills the space in Romano's time with shimmering glissando and floating harmonics that offer a space of Leveratto's devastatingly beautiful blues solo. Berger's piano work on "My Way to India" is reminiscent of Mal Waldron's, in that he states his phrases modally and then takes them apart to build a series of harmonic structures for Aliprandi to course the melody through. Rhythmically, the tune skirts all issues of convention, particularly when Romano goes into military march mode before opening his space for Berger to fall into a duel with Aliprandi on some hard bop blues. In all, this record's grace is in its willingness to be wrong, to experiment with textures and jazz forms dimensionally as well as directly. It's a warm, swinging, wide-eyed wonder of an album. ~ Thom Jurek