[A]nyone interested in investigating all that is fine about New York downtown jazz -- and how it contrasts with the midtown stuff -- should start right here... Ned Rothenberg's Power Lines is an absolute classic that no other downtown CD -- by John Zorn, Dave Douglas, or anybody else well-known or obscure -- has ever topped.

Power Lines is among the earthiest, most soulful and grooving CDs that anybody from the downtown crowd has ever released.... 'In the Rotation' is nothing short of a masterpiece, with its polyrhythmic cartwheels and burrowing groove, its torrid solos, and its massed string, horn, and reed embellishments, all of which coalesce in an absolutely thrilling crescendo at the album's close. Power Lines is a pinnacle of New York downtown music.