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But that’s certainly not the whole story. Crompton, an Australian currently living in Brooklyn, is not a guy to be nailed down to one method. As “Intuit” progresses, the music thins out and coheres. There’s a moment when the tenors harmonize in the background, their tones wavering together like a mirage suspended over a body water, while Crompton plays long whinnies in the foreground. Some planning went into this moment, and it’s the way the sounds fit, not how they were assembled, that matters most on this record. Skip ahead to “Courage,” the second track, and you’ll just three reeds, working in intricately plotted counterpoint. They may tangle intricately, but also with a deliberate precision that has more in common with conventional chamber music than free jazz.  

The line-up keeps changing, with the rhythm section dropping in and out, and the number and size of the horns varying nearly as often. Crompton is particularly adept at arranging horns so that they project a lush elegance that is at odds with their small number; most likely, he’s spent some time studying Charles Mingus’s studies of Duke Ellington. When the rhythm section comes sauntering back on “Dreaming,” you might also think for a second of Gil Evans, at least until one of the tenors takes an intricately knotted, coarse-toned solo. Crompton’s working from a book of ideas, and he respects the history and example of creative music enough to not simply hold up the ones he’s borrowed. He adds something to them, and puts parts together in ways that other arrangers due not. This may be Crompton’s debut, but it feels like the work of someone who has put in considerable time and effort to fashion something personal from the estimable examples of his forbears.