The lights are low, the room is warm, and the hum of quiet conversation fades as the first note from Michael Hackett’s trumpet cuts through the air. It’s not loud, not showy — just enough to shift the energy in the room, like the slow opening of a door to somewhere you weren’t expecting to go. His sextet gathers around him, not in rigid formation but like old friends leaning in, ready to share a story they’ve been keeping for just the right night.
The music begins to breathe. Hackett’s tone is clear and full, but never cold — it has the warmth of something lived in, like pages worn by years of turning. There’s no rush to impress, no need to crowd the space with unnecessary flourishes. Every phrase seems to rise and fall naturally, shaped by the moment. The others listen closely, responding not just to the notes, but to the spaces between them. The alto sax and trombone weave around his lines like two voices in a shared memory, sometimes clashing in spirited bursts, sometimes folding together until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Then comes “Circles.” The air shifts. The tempo slows, and the sound takes on a floating quality, drifting in soft spirals. Each instrument steps forward in turn — Todd Bashore, Hackett, Mike Holober, Phil Palombi — but none of them seek to outshine the others. Instead, they offer their voices like chapters in the same book, each one adding depth to the last. The melody feels both fragile and unshakable, with a quiet ache running beneath it, like the bittersweet pull of a memory you don’t want to let go. In those minutes, the room forgets time.
Not all of the evening is restraint. There are moments when the energy kicks the walls, where ideas tumble over one another in a rush of enthusiasm. It’s messy, unpredictable, and entirely alive — the sort of thing that can only happen when trust between musicians runs deep. You can see it in their faces: they’re not just playing for the crowd, they’re playing for each other.
And then, as if the night decides to whisper instead of shout, the final song arrives: “Never Let Me Go.” The band pares down to a quartet. The sound narrows, intimate, like light spilling through a half-closed door. Hackett plays with a tenderness that feels almost private, as though he’s letting the audience overhear something meant for someone else. Each note carries a weight you can’t fake — not the weight of technique, but of time, of experience, of years spent chasing the kind of beauty that can’t be rushed.
When the last note fades, there’s a silence before the applause — that rare, charged silence when everyone is still inside the spell and no one wants to be the first to break it. You leave not remembering every detail, but holding onto the feeling that, for a while, you were part of something fleeting and true. And that is what stays.
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