A commendable blowing session by a tentet from Australia, Ten Part Invention, led by drummer Pochée, boasts a formidable composer/arranger/improvisor in pianist/sopranino saxophone player Roger Frampton whose four-part "Jazznost Suite" accounts for 34 of the disc's 71-plus minutes.
This is well-written and interesting music, as are the other five charts, two apiece by saxophonist Sandy Evans and trumpeter Miroslav Bukovsky, the other by pianist Mike Nock. "Jazznost," written after Frampton's visit  to Russia in 1989, evokes in its four movements the several moods of that visit ranging from excitement(the opening samba) to reflection (the gentle bossa "Very Fragile"), tedium (the slow-moving "Long Journey") and the warmth and friendship of a guide and interpreter wrestling with an unfamiliar language (the light-hearted samba "Sorry My English"). And as well as Frampton plays throughout he is even better on the seldom-heard sopranino saxophone on this movement. Evans, who proves her mettle as a player on "The Long Journey," composed the gorgeous ballad "Wind Over the Lake" and the title selection whose insistent African rhythm abets the unusual front-line combination of sopranino and two alto saxophones voiced in parallel fourths. Bukovsky penned "M.D.D.," a tribute to Miles Dewey Davis whose dark and foreboding structures - coupled with idiomatic solo excursions by Bukovsky (flugelhorn) and Warwick Alder (trumpet) - evoke the spirit of the Davis/Gil Evans collaborations of the '60s, and the gentle bossa "Moon Too Soon." Nock's "Isospin," which rounds out the session, is an energetic and appealing piece that explores a variety of moods and colours.
Inventive is the word for Ten Part Invention.

Jack Bowers  - Cadence