The Wallace Roney Quintet (1996)

From the plaintive-yet-robust trumpet voice to the flexible pulse of the band, there's no mistaking the role model for Wallace Roney's current group, The Wallace Rone Quintet: Miles Davis' classic, oft-emulated mid-'60s quintet. But what of it? Is ''Beatles-esque'' a bad thing for a pop band? Some of Roney's recordings have been conceptually thin, but here, a bolder, more unified identity emerges in The Wallace Roney Quintet on original tunes played with quixotic bravura. Miles-esque and proud, Roney remains one of the men with a horn who matters most. B+