Steeped in jazz, the Nice Guys embrace a wide array of styles, drawing from klezmer, blues, funk, calypso, country, Balkan, and Hindustani music. The protean combo effortlessly incorporates some of the finest improvisers on the multifarious San Francisco scene, creating playfully virtuosic music that references genres while existing outside of any particular style or tradition. 

Founded in early 2008 by trumpeter Darren Johnston, the group features accordion ace Rob Reich and bassist Daniel Fabricant exploring a heady mix of original compositions and modern jazz classics by the likes of Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman. 

A major force on the Bay Area creative music scene for the past decade, Johnston has collaborated with heavyweight improvisers such as guitarist Fred Frith, ROVA Saxophone Quartet, and bassist/composer Marcus Shelby. The album reflects his far-flung musical pursuits, as The Nice Guys are joined on various tracks by a dazzling roster of guests, including clarinet legend Ben Goldberg, tabla expert Sameer Gupta, pedal-steel guitar maestro David Phillips, and versatile violinist Dina Maccabee. 

The resulting music is strangely familiar, consistently beautiful, and brilliantly goofy. Phillips' gently keening pedal-steel line turns the righteous indignation of Mingus' "Fables of Faubus" into a vertiginous funhouse ride, while Gupta's insistent tabla pulse propels Johnston's "Off the Grid" into exquisitely uncharted Eastern territories. But it's the trio's ability to sustain a lively three-way instrumental conversation, with plenty of pauses, retorts, and discursive inquiries that defines the group approach.