One of the funniest things about Timeless is that it is one of the very, very few jazz albums I could NOT find at one of my preferred public libraries. Now this isn't Kind of Blue, but even still, it was a bit of a surprise to find things like the Brad Mehldau's Art of the Trio, Volume 3 without any difficulty, but somehow this one slipped through the cracks. Needless to say, I had done pretty good financially so far, so a little "investment" wasn't such a bad thing.
Other than seeing his name on a list, I didn't know a whole lot about Abercrombie. With maybe one exception, there was no "sideman" era before the release of this, his debut album. With fusionistas Jan Hammer (recently exiled from the Mahavishnu Orchestra) and Jack DeJohnette forming the other legs of the trio, one would expect an ample dose of classic 1970's fusion, and in places that is true. Elsewhere the music is much more understated (this is an ECM album after all). Abercrombie doesn't play as explosively as John McLaughlin, but he's not content to be strictly acoustic (Joe Pass) or ethereal as Pat Metheny. The leads are handled even-handedly between Abercrombie and Hammer, with DeJohnette gently holding the structure together. Although this wasn't a permanent arrangement, the three would work together intermittently in the ECM scene.
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