Wallace Roney has often protested his musical separation from his sometime mentor, Miles Davis. But No Room for Argument so openly embraces various parts of Davis's legacy that there really is no room for argument. The band uses as its stylistic focus the Miles discs of Filles de Kilimanjaro and In a Silent Way, the "Filles" theme interwoven on one track with the famous bass ostinato from Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". Geri Allen tracks Chick Corea's work from that time, while sax players Antoine Roney and Steve Hall restlessly switch between Coltrane and Shorter styles. Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band is also a potent reference. Hall quotes extensively from Coltrane's "Acknowledgement" solo during the most exciting part of the Filles/Supreme track, but is faded (electronically) by the producer. There are samples from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X speeches on these tracks, adding to the weight of the past on the record. Roney plays powerfully, but the parallels do tend to drain his intended impact. --Keith Shadwick