In any successful partnership, both parties must be self-assured, while enabling the best of each other. And they should surround themselves with people who will support, encourage and inspire. Such it is, with Mike Melito and Dino Losito. Friends and colleagues of long-standing, they're veterans of the legendary "thruway of funk" that spans Upstate New York, from Niagara Falls and Buffalo, to Rochester, Syracuse and Albany, and every place in-between. For generations, some of the swingingest musicians in Jazz have come from that hotbed, from Stanley Turrentine and J.R. Monterose to Mel Lewis and Frankie Dunlop. The Jazz Upstate has always been characterized by a take-no-prisoners, honest-to-goodness respect for soulful expression. Joined here by tenor saxophonist Larry McKenna, whose contributions to the Jazz Scene in Philadelphia (another Jazz crucible) are well-known, and first-call New York bassist, Neal Miner, Melito and Losito have turned in a date that is at once creative but relentlessly swinging, original but steeped in tradition, elegant but funky as all get-out. Sit back, spin the record, and enjoy.