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Mile By Jazz Milevarious artists 
CLJ-608-2Released Oct 12, 1999 Hear it! 
Buy it!
Track 1, Peri’s Scope, is a previously unreleased track from the Joel Spencer / Kelly Sill Quartet Brighter Side sessions.  Mile By Jazz Mile is subtitled Music for The ’99 LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon, and was released to coincide with an annual event that draws many visitors to the Chicago area. Consequently, this package was assembled to introduce more casual listeners to the variety of jazz talents in the region. And since the CLJ label devotes itself exclusively to local jazz artists, and had a supply of unreleased tracks to make the collection really special, who better to tackle such a task? Apparently aimed at the “tourist trade”, this anthology plays it relatively safe yet manages a fair amount of variety at the same time. There are piano trio tracks, a couple of big band cuts, a “contemporary” number from Nick Colionne, a whimsical original from vocalist Jackie Allen, and more... all pleasing and done well, mostly straightahead. [The closest the disc gets to “raucous and challenging” is a hot quintet number led by local sax prodigy Frank Catalano.] All in all, a solid collection and a handy reminder of the vast repository of stellar jazz talent that plugs away in obscurity, never making the covers of magazines, but doing fine work for the love of doing it. 
The Spencer / Sill selection presents Chris on alto, but is primarily a feature for pianist Garry Dial -- he gets the first solo, taken in a style more driving than dreamy, “dreamy” being the way the song’s composer Bill Evans probably would’ve done it... and Dial also gets to trade fours near the end with drummer Joel Spencer. [Which evolves into trading twos, and then trading ones, which generates real excitement! One of the high points of the disc.] In between these piano spots, Chris gets off a fine solo, mostly straight down the middle as befits this group performance, but “bumping the edges” sometimes with leaping angular phrases and molten tone that remind me a bit of Art Pepper. A solid and worthy addition to the Potter oeuvre.
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