Pianist/keyboardist Marc Seales mixes jazz with its blues root on this cookin' session with Fred Hamilton/g, Jeff Johnson/b, Dave Captein/eb and Gary Hobbs/dr. The band cruises like a Ford V8 on the waltzing "Highway Blues" and the gentle "The Open Road" which both spotlight some clean and fresh work by Hamilton's fretwork. Seales' piano is sleek on the grooving "Blue" and his keyboard serves as a bed of feathers for Hobb's brush work on "Sunset Blues." Clever takes of Coltrane's "Giant Steps" and Wayne Shorter's "ESP" update two classics and make them available for 21st Century ears and feet. Nice reaching into the red soil and soil of jazz.