Rich Pellegrin Quintet - Three-Part Odyssey (OA2 Records 2011)

When a jazz quintet is composed of young players tagged as "forward-looking," that often means musicians trying to sound like trumpeter Miles Davis' second great quintet. It's a trap that Pellegrin and his band avoid, with a sound—with its multiple songwriting voices—that's remarkably original, the playing often fierce and stormy, at other times restrained and unabashedly beautiful. Pellegrin seems to have multiple influences, displaying at times the density and drive and penchant for repetition of pianist McCoy Tyner, elsewhere sounding free and unpredictable, like no one but himself on this superb debut.DAN MCCLENAGHAN, allaboutjazz