Here’s another disc by another piano trio, but with a semi-crucial difference: whereas the pianist leads nearly all piano/bass/drums groups, its drummer/composer, Greg Holloway, helms this one. True, while the drums are a bit more up-front in the sound mix to where it sounds like "lead drums" some of the time, Holloway isn’t a hog for the spotlight. He reminds me of Max Roach in his approach - not that he sounds like Roach per se (though they share the same sense of crisp, driven swing), but in the way he leads the band w/out being overbearing. Pianist Jon Ozment plays with plenty of gusto, with overtones of T. Monk (playfully hard-hitting, judicious angularity) and Vince Guaraldi (bright & jaunty w/out being saccharine) and bassist Pepe Gonzales is The Anchor. And there’re 10 tunes (mostly hearty, meat-&-potatoes originals) so you know there’s no excess or water-treading. As the cherry on the sundae, the sound quality/production is clear 'n' vivid. While nothing surprising or earth-shaking, Full Circle is a fine slice of straight-ahead, bristly hard-bop.

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