Many Jazz fans who'd love or not love this music might tag it avant-garde, but it's as steeped in tradition as any Wynton Marsalis record. It's just that these players have a different, and broader conception of what tradition is. If such musicians are still working through ideas brought to jazz 30 or 40 years ago, by now they really know how to use them. that's why this band works: everyone has learned the language, and speaks it fluently.

An unexpected and out-of-the-blue-gem. This is what we jazz fans live for.

Like Joe Lovano, Colorado-based tenor saxophonist Fred Hess's versatility is impressive and his slippery avant-garde learnings lead to many different looks, but none of them are too referential to other players, past or present.

Hess knows how to compose and tell original tales, and listening to "Extended Family" is a stimulating experience.

This release is another exciting offering of forward thinking post-Bop fron Hess and the quartet.

Throughout, the musicians celebrate the 1960s-era free-form playing that spilled forth in the wake of Ornette Coleman and others who boldly broke molds from the '50s onward. Unobtrusively produced, the set captures their interplay with the warmth of a studio and the visceral edge of a live performance.

Fred Hess is one of the finest tenor saxophone performers in jazz.

Tenor saxophonist Fred Hess is that rarity - a fully crystallised composer and improvisor who has appeared seemingly from nowhere.

Hess's earthy yet nuanced tenor saxophone conversations with trumpeter Paul Smoker are as enjoyable as newly discovered Raymond Carver short stories and contain similar hidden edges.