This CD reissue of pianist and composer Muhal Richard Abrams's first record as a bandleader evinces both his singular focus on the piano and his command of an ensemble playing a difficult score. The music is highly wrought yet full of free space for expressive possibility. His keyboard technique unfolds gorgeously, from full piano runs that teeter into glissandi and shaken tonal foundations, to a jarring, ear-popping life that rattles the bones. With his young group of up-and-coming Chicago talent, Abrams presented his 21-plus minute "Wise in Time" with a breathtaking balance: composed and improvised passages happen in tandem; space and density collide; tonality and atonality chatter together. In short, Abrams's is a historical quilt work that decodes a great deal of other jazz avant-garde works while standing brightly, complexly on its own. --Andrew Bartlett