Herculaneum

Heavy hitters abound in the local jazz scene, and while Herculaneum swims in the same pond, it’s an altogether different creature. The sextet remains better known for its tightly coiled collaboration than for any soloist. Over four albums, drummer-bandleader Dylan Ryan has meticulously plotted a course pairing his fierce chops with tasteful and taut postbop. Hideout patrons might recognize Ryan from art-rock acts Icy Demons and Michael Columbia, but in Herc he pulls his swing hat on snug.

Last year’s slept-on III landed the group a slot at Clean Feed Records’ inaugural Chicago showcase in May. Though its affiliation with the Portuguese label lent the group a certain gravitas, the band ably demonstrates it can hold its own on a new self-released effort, Olives and Orchids. The album’s sense of spontaneity can be attributed in part to reedist David McDonnell, who kicks in a few tunes; previously, that had been solely Ryan’s province.

A dazzling four-man front line darts through hyper-syncopated interplay on the hometown outfit’s latest, pitting the saxophone team of altoist McDonnell and tenor man Nate Lepine against the horns: trombonist Nick Broste and trumpeter Patrick Newbery. The sustained brass tones of “Temporary Orca” underscore an angular twin-sax figure, followed by stuttering grooves on the menacing “Dynasty.” The moody “Puerto Jimenez” nods to Ornette Coleman’s haunting “Lonely Woman” with a free-floating theme hovering above an odd-time Latin rhythm. A hive-minded approach to improvisation keeps this unit vital.

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