Schonig is a New York drummer who plays Broadway shows when he’s not supporting top jazz players. He’s been given his head on clarinettist Anat Cohen’s Anzic label with both a potent quintet session featuring his own compositions and then a substantial big band gathering which takes in contributions from a number of top arrangers including Jim McNeely, Alan Ferber, Darcy James Argue and Laurence Hobgood.

Thus, Schonig gets a double opportunity to test the validity of his compositions, first with the quintet and then via the companion CD where the same eight pieces are re-imagined by commissioned arrangers. Quite frankly, this level of enterprise needs a degree of attention that a mere review can only hint at. Suffice to say, that the quintet versions are best described as hard bop, they’re bright, direct, and filled with exceptional solo playing, all underpinned by Schonig’s varied rhythmic motifs and accents. This is stirring stuff, and Chicagoan Hill is superb throughout, this typified by his improvisation on ‘Climb’ with its strong patterns, distilling Hubbard and Shaw via a series of quite startling variations.

To be fair, Louis and Perdomo aren’t far behind. Turning to the orchestral version of ‘Climb’, arranger Mike Holober plays a long game over nine minutes-plus, opening with delicate reed voicings, before an ethereal Gil Evans-like section, the orchestra gradually revving up for powerful brass shouts towards the finish, Rigby and Pillow, tenor and alto respectively, weaving their way through the harmonic undergrowth. Consider that a similar set of outcomes then applies for a further seven compositions and you’ll realise the audacity of the concept and its range. There’s incident aplenty, a multiplicity of twists and turns offered by these writers, each chart marked by a suffusion of top soloists, the whole enterprise a huge gesture of confidence in both composer and executant. Lucky Jared.