There’s a lot to admire about Stanton Moore’s new album. It’s hardly a solo show; even though his name is on the spine, III is clearly a group project, and he’s just the drummer. He gets his when the texture or energy of a piece accompanies a change in his drumming. He also shares the spotlight where writing is concerned, recording five Robert Walter tracks, one by Mark Mullins and one by Will Bernard. The grooves are strong and the sound is warm, the result of recording in Preservation Hall.

 

Still, III suffers a bit for sounding like a lot of jam jazz-funk—heads that vaguely recall other songs, pieces that groove without really being booty-shakers, and solos that occasionally burn, but more often embroider the groove than generate excitement. It’s all fine—Moore, Walter and Bernard are too talented to be less than that—but after a handful of listens, it’s still not obvious which song is which without looking at the track list.

 

Perhaps because of that, the album’s end made a big impression. Moore slows down Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Water From an Ancient Well,” putting some welcome space in his own sound. That, followed by Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks”—with Moore playing a funeral march on his snare instead of matching John Bonham’s oft-sampled beat—and a spare version of the spiritual “I Shall Not Be Moved” show how smart and genuinely adventurous Moore and company can be. Each track is distinctive, and not just within the album. Bernard plays the blues in greater or lesser degrees while Walter lets his organ gently insinuate itself into the tracks before fading away. Moore provides subtle coloring, playing with mallets on two of the three tracks and mixed so low that he almost seems absent, and the results have more artistic and emotional impact for it.