With a lineup joining the Coltraneish postbop conceptions of experienced tenorist and clarinetist Greg Tardy, and the lyrical yet always collaborative LA pianist Gerald Clayton alongside subtle drummer Johnathan Blake, Bill Frisell moves closer to a coolly thematic contemporary-jazz sound than than of his famously abstract and painterly portrayals of Americana. This new quartet is also improvisationally looser in its ensemble conversations, and has clear links to the quieter, rhythmically inquisitive music Frisell explored with Valentine, this fine set's 2020 Blue Note predecessor. Four is a collection of 13 originals, joining recent material with early gems like 1988's ‘Lookout for Hope’ and the 1990s ‘Good Dog, Happy Man’. Tardy's delicacy on clarinet gives Frisell's soundscape a wistfully lyrical tenderness on the opening ‘Dear Old Friend (for Alan Woodard)’, a hymnal reverie with melodic echoes that recall ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ – but this group also builds compelling grooves out of gospelly moods, as on ‘The Pioneers’, a vehicle for Tardy's yearning and then swinging tenor sax. The playfully spooky, marionettish ‘Holiday’, the dreamy ‘Waltz for Hal Willner’ and the slinkily bluesy ‘Monroe’ span the wide horizons of Frisell's songwriting (rather than textural or impressionistic) imagination, with the latter two also highlighting his long-honed, effortlessly conversational ease with Tardy in contrapuntal and call-and-response improv. The haunting, noirish classic ‘Lookout for Hope’ is a standout, as it was a quarter-century ago, cascading sounds like chiming bells propel the buoyant ‘Good Dog, Happy Man’, and ‘Dog on a Roof’ shows how effortlessly a compatible Frisell group like this can move from scuttling free-improv, to languid free-funk, to enigmatic electronics. Mostly low-key, but irresistible.