Dom Minasi’s fat, round, clean tone and his preference for hollowbody archtop guitars telegraph traditional jazz, but the series of dots and dashes that come tumbling from his fingers and frets when he fires up on "Satin Doll" is all avant-garde speed-demonology. Like Sonny Sharrock before him, Minasi is a veteran (at 58) whose daring Coltrane-inspired approach has been overlooked for decades.
This live trio recording from an April 2001 Knitting Factory gig plumbs a half-dozen Duke Ellington classics fresh ripened by Minasi’s imaginative reharmonizings of their melodies (especially "Don’t Get Around Much Anymore," which also jacks the tempo to hyperspeed) and the wide-open free sections that stretch them in unpredictable ways. Minasi’s almost 14-minute "Take the A Train" is especially scalding, starting with a slow-freight-like rattle from drummer Jackson Krall (of Cecil Taylor’s trio) and bassist Ken Filiano (a Vinny Golia band alum) before being pushed by Minasi’s quickstep chords and slurs toward a splatter of sound that leads to a guitar break full of quick-flash melodies and an interweaving of linear single notes that recalls John McLaughlin at the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s peak. This disc’s transformation of familiar material and virtuoso quality may not break Minasi out of the American fringe-jazz ghetto, but it’s a wake-up call for open-minded listeners.