Drummers are not necessarily the first musicians you think of as bandleaders but there is a long tradition of drummer-leaders in jazz from Chick Webb and Gene Krupa to Art Blakey and Paul Motian.

Enrique Haneine
The Mind’s Mural
Elegant Walk
2018

Enrique Haneine leads a two saxophone quartet with some Ornette Coleman in its DNA. Haneine and bassist Carlo De Rosa lay down tight, lurching rhythm beds while Anna Webber and Catherine Sikora sing and dialog over them with a quicksilver unity recalling Coleman and Dewey Redman. The group navigates a slippery calypso melody on “The Seventh Layer,” struts easily on “The One Eleven Tale” and bounces off an African beat on “Life Of It’s Own.” Haneine spaces beats like Ed Blackwell while De Rosa throbs beside him and the two saxophones alternately play melodies in close harmony and spiral off into strong solo statements. Webber’s and Sikora’s chattering beboppish interplay on “Life” and bluesy swinging on “Reality Groove” make for particularly heady music.