On his solo debut, Robert Stillman plays piano, saxaphone, and drums, with a rotating cast of backup musicians. No rookie to the industry, the former member of Kalifactors creates with Horses a modern record with a vintage feel ... or a vintage record with a modern feel ... or maybe something in between.

          The album opens with a song called "The Dance," a waltz which kicks off with sparse yet interesting piano. It has a uniquely American feel, as it creates an almost circus-music atmosphere, elevated to a higher level of 50s cool-era jazz. The title track that follows begins with a Rhodes and drums that sound almost as if they were programmed to remind us that it's not the 50s, but the saxophone comes in with chromaticism reminiscent of Stan Getz or Dizzie Gillespie, taking us right back.

          "Love Theme" is a lush, swelling, beautiful ballad that holds its own against even the best of Vince Guraldi. Listening to "Love Theme" is like looking at an Ansel Adams landscape. Later in the album, Stillman revisits "The Dance," creating a Joplin-like ragtime, and fitting it carefully and neatly into the cool-era feel of the record. A square peg does fit in a round hole, apparently.

          Overall, the album creates an Americana vibe, with the qualities of quintessential American composers such as Copland and Gershwin, and harnesses it into a Stan Getz or Miles Davis 50s quintet. But it's more than that: Horses manages to throw off any obvious boundaries of genre and establish itself as a timeless piece that could've been made in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s, but one you wouldn't expect today.