Pianist Dave Hazeltine, one of Milwaukee’s jazz luminaries of the 1970s, turns up in good company on Returns 2014. The album title refers to the long absence from the recording studio of the session’s leader, guitarist Mark Elf. Elf and Hazeltine swim in the cool tide that flowed out of bebop, playing notes that slip through their fingers like liquid silver. The compositions are all Elf’s, save the old Billy Eckstein ballad “It Was So Beautiful” and the Rodgers and Hammerstein standard “People Will Say We’re in Love.”
