by Rick AndersonLooking back over Kenny Wheeler's more than four decades of work as a world-class trumpeter and flügelhorn player, it's striking to see how much distance he has covered stylistically, both as a player and as a composer. Now in his 70s, he is no longer the bop classicist of his youth, and while he retains an interest in free jazz he also feels no need to cultivate an image as an improvisational wild man. The seven original tunes on the aptly titled Dream Sequence (plus one standard, the Billy Strayhorn composition "A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing") are all fully composed jazz pieces, but their mood and tone are quite consistently floating and dreamy; not arrhythmic, but not exactly swinging either. Wheeler himself, while not an aggressive player, is the clear leader in this group and the tonal center of the music by virtue of his warm, rich tone and gently confident presence (he plays flügelhorn, rather than trumpet, throughout the program). These recordings were made over a period of seven years with a shifting group of sidemen; one track, the lovely "Hearken," is a solo piece, and another, the even better "Drum Sequence," is a duo for flügelhorn and drums. The most impressive performances, though, are those that incorporate at least a quartet into the dreamy ambience of Wheeler's musical vision. Very highly recommended.