Search - Nighthawks :: Citizenwayne

German musicians Reiner Winterschladen (trumpet, flügelhorn) and Dal Martino (bass, guitar, keyboards, and samples) apply their own spin to the notion of acid jazz with this obscure but intriguing assortment of languid grooves and unhurried horns. On most occasions ("Mondo," "Bar Next to the Roxy," Thelonious Monk's much-covered "Round Midnight"), the music's smoky vibe and understated sense of cool seem appropriate for watching city lights through a rain-blurred window with a Scotch in hand. Gears shift when the duo (who take their collective name from a 1942 Edward Hopper painting of three figures in an all-night diner) strings together its "Bronco Suite," a wry, three-part ode to composer Ennio Morricone and the bell-chiming, high-noon, day-of-reckoning music (with some trip-hop twists) of countless spaghetti Westerns. The disc returns to its sultry, late-night ways in the final three tracks ("Love's End," the closer, is a lovely kiss goodbye), though its highlight is "Orphanage des Elephants" (explanation unknown), a piece with a quietly infectious groove that, as it underpins Martino's scratchy keys and Winterschladen's trumpet flare-ups, echoes the jazzier instincts of Traffic. --Terry Wood