COOKE QUINTET an indefinite suspension of the possible (Black Hat Records, BH-1004): I am astonished, five new names and equal a hot candidate for the Bad Alchemy-Favorites. The group, which the saxophonist, flutist & bass clarinetist Michael Cooke (*1970) from the Bay Area gathered around himself, are characterized all by its multi-stylistic openness and unpuristical virtuosity. Whether the amazing trombonist & didgeridooist Jen Baker, the kotoist Shoko Hikage, the stupendous cellist Alex Kelly or the drummer & percussionist Timothy Orr, they all have experience playing and “dance legs” in classical period and world music with a spectrum from baroque to Zydeko, from Renaissance to the Hundredth Monkey ensemble. Cooke places his Quintet into the proximity of Julius Hemphill, Martin Ehrlich`s Dark Woods ensemble or Masada. But his composition style is nevertheless completely his own. Pluralistically integrates Klezmer or octatonic scales, an Indian Raga merges with Tuva resemblances, Jewish melodies meets Japanese Koto music, guttural trombone sound on glittery cello sounds, elegant memories change with exotic fantasies with the Pacific Ocean of sound as open horizon. Nothing here is not complexly arranged, with New Music ambitions and full Sophistication. But instead of something overblown and bulky, it rings out 7 wide awake fantasies over "Loss", "Love at Twilight" and the "Chain of Existence", an autobiographic Suite over three sections with a furious center section. And Cooke, a longhair metrosexual, to which one thinks capable of everything else, sings thereby on his Reeds with the Verve, intimateness and matured personality of a genuine musician, whose name one must note. I am heavily inspired anyhow.