Grammy Award-winner and Broadway orchestra mainstay Jared Schonig’s compositions are strikingly fresh, vibrant and filled with harmonic interplay and conversations. And then, there are his drum interludes where he ly soliloquizes on a vibe. These pauses drive the music and propel the engine forward. Primal and pulse abound. As such, Jared joins the growing fellow of drummers fronting their own bands, from Brian Blade to Tyshawn Sorey. The quintet album (co-produced by his wife Amy Crawford) pushes Jared’s compositional prowess to the fore. The album opens with a rambunctious launch into an old Wee Trio standby, “White Out,” written in a blizzard when the native Californian first moved to New York City. “I was walking around with this rhythmic pattern in my head, then I heard the b line which displaced the groove I had,” he says. “At the time I was listening to a lot of odd-meter music, so this was a difficult melody. I wanted the quintet to bring it back to how I originally heard it. We recorded it the first time we were together as a band.” That tune―with captivating alto and trumpet harmonies, a b throb and a rowdy drum solo ending ―presages what’s to come. There’s more alto-trumpet dazzle and the flow of short solos in the sprightly “Climb.” “I wrote this when I was thinking about life as a journey―a marathon, not a sprint. The piece has a long build and a cathartic ending, which I learned from playing in Kurt Elling’s band―tension and finally release. It’s about struggles, so I messed around with three-note voicings.” The graceful and grooved closing song “Gibbs Street” is a lyrical beauty written as a homage to his alma mater Eastman School of Music. Jared says, ”It’s a collective improvisation about my reflections on being there: chill and crazy, intense and quiet.” The takeaway from Two Takes Vol.