Capsule reviews of newly acquired, but not necessarily new, recordings, most recent on top.

MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken. -- Lewis Black

	Matt Wilson:  Scenic Route (Palmetto)  It's too bad about Matt Wilson; last we saw him (see below) he was 14 years old and 18 feet tall, and now, he appears to have a frown and--is that a bald spot--just like yours truly.  Kool car, though.  But he also has, on this recording, Terrell Stafford, who my buddy Tom Pajak informs me is Director of Jazz Studies at, ah, Temple University.  In Philadelphia.  Let's think about jazz musicians who came from Philadelphaia.  Lest you think this is too academic an appointment, Stafford has a big, fat sound, really big, and he can improvise tunes, not just those sequences of notes that don't screw up changes.  Tunes! Holy cow!  Jesse Chandler, whom we have met before, performs a supporting role, but it's really hard to keep up with Professor Stafford.
	Jenny Scheinman:  12 Songs (Cryptogramophone) Bill Firisell has become one of those guys who are more interesting on other people's albums than their own.  His fingerprints are all over this entry by Jenny Scheniman, which maybe has a little bit o' little too precious Tin Hat Trio, mixed together with what you wish Frisell was doing on his own releases.  I think she can be the jazziest violinist playing jazz today; she doesn't have Regina Carter's mind-boggling chops, but when Jenny improvises, jazz can come out. And it's fun.  You know I like fun, and that I think jazz has too little of it nowadays.  The more she (and the band) lets loose, the better it gets, like Ponty before he became New Age.  So, she should get together with Ben Waltzer (below, unless George Duke is available) and get loose.  Bill can hang around to watch, if he wants.  It's a middle age thing, you wouldn't understand.
	Lyle "Spud" Murphy:  New Orbits In Sound (GNP/Crescendo)  The GNP re-issue is not too clear about the original release of this recording, which does have a slightly "Sputnick" sound to it, but it sounds like 1958 to me.  Lest you think, however, that this is Esquivel, the players include Frank Morgan (in top form, with a sound like mercury at room temperature), Buddy Collette, Curtis Counce, Chico Hamilton, so this is instead, high-sheen late 50's West Coast.  The band turns on a dime, and the soloists are Bird-conversant.  Googling Spud is instructive, too, musicians don't have resumes like that anymore, wandering around the Southwest at 14 playing pick-up dates.  By the time he passed on, which was not that long ago, Spud had established a well-regarded compositional theory.  Put this right alongside your Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band, your Shorty Rogers and your Duane Tatro.  Collect 'em all!
	Hank Jones:  For My Father (Justin Time)  This really is the age of the rhythm section.  While horn players sound increasingly confused, abandoning jazz' roots in dance music for who knows what, the rhythm sections just keep getting stronger, more precise, more muscular, more creative, so when Hank Jones does a trio section with George Mraz and Dennis Mackrel, he can count on a sound that Bill Evans could only imagine; these guys have absorbed everything that Scott & Paul did, and then polished it until it's almost hard to look at.  Jones' touch is astonishing, too, honed by years of everyday performance--he used to have Paul Schaeffer's job--the way he makes the sound on the instrument sets him apart from every other pianist.  While I love Martial Solal's amazing speed and Monk+Tatum imagination, nobody has the quiet precision of Hank Jones.  Mostly standards, beautifully recorded, if Nancy Pelosi wants to do something useful, well, Congress should declare Hank Jones Day.
	Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood:  Out Louder (Indirecto) Some people seem to get irritated at these guys just because they're not obscure and appear to be successful.  I like 'em, I am particularly impressed by the level of interaction; they really listen to each other, it's never a pick-up session.  They're fun, and, apparently, fun is not allowed in jazz anymore, this is art.  Stop smiling.    And, in John Scofield we trust, because he wrote "The Boss' Car," and you didn't.  Most of it is funky, there is some On The Corner stuff that is not so memorable, Lennon's Julia, the combination is an additive effect, no surprises.  Thank God, I could really do with no surprises for awhile; when you get to be a certain age, all surprises are bad surprises.
	Lucky Thompson:  Lord, Lord, Am I Ever Gonna Know? (Candid) Recorded in 1961 and  long unavailable in this country, Lucky' s most coherent (and best-recorded) LP with Martial Solal is now available from your local CD emporium, or, if you must, Amazon, so you should go out and obtain a copy right now.  Europeans without it have no excuse.  Lucky's got a beautiful tone, especially on soprano, a beautiful band--Kenny Clarke, plus a fine bass player, Peter Trunk, who is unknown to me--and a playlist of slow, haunted originals.  Solal fits into the background, restraining hs showboat tendencies,and the whole package couldn't be more simultaneously Continental and funky.  My only complaint is that it all ends too soon.  Don't play it before 1 AM.
	Frank Zappa:  Trance-Fusion (Zappa)  The notes, written by, well, it's not entirely clear who, indicate that FZ was working on these tapes shortly before his death.  While the author suggests that this makes these recordings somehow significant, it is more likely that FZ was assembling another guitar solo album to pay the rent, in the same way he used to tour to support the development of the next album.  This album, like the previous guitar-solo-oriented work, further demonstrates that FZ was Lennie Tristano's most successful disciple, playing long lines over a carefully constrained rhythm section, like Warne Marsh, or even the contemporary Sonny Rollins. On the scale between the warm, enveloping sonority of SU&PUG and the more caustic Guitar, this one sits maybe about halfway.  There are a few Dweezil solos, and it's interesting to compare him to Dad; Dweezil's got more technique, but he tends to fall back on tricks sooner, and there's a lot less space in the solos.  Of course, Dweezil was probably about 18 when he played those solos, and I can hardly find middle C on the piano.  There's a nice arrangement of Chunga's Revenge, but the solo doesn't have the gypsy mutant industrial vacuum cleaner majesty of the original LP. Nice that it's there, though.  I assume we can look forward to more live tapes in the years to come--in fact there's more from UMRK scheduled for release in December, 2006--but this recording, while not embarrassing, may be an indication that, after only 70-odd authorized releases, we really have heard all the best original stuff.  But worry not!  Because we have...
	Ed Palermo Big Band:  Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance (Cuneiform)  In his final five years, FZ had given up touring and was using the Synklavier and the Ensemble Modern to make the sounds.  Ensemble Modern was a good choice (I particularly like their recording of Hindemith's Kammermusik), but even the hippest classical ensembles tend to worry too much about getting it just so, as opposed to FZ's "eyebrows."  Palermo understands that it is important that there not only be eyebrows, but the music must rollick, and rollick he does.  He rollicks so much that he cannot quite get the Gumbo Variations up to the wild-eyed level it requires, compared to, say, his crazy-swinging 7/4 A Pound For a Brown on the Bus, which I heard the Flo & Eddie Band nail in Cincinnati's Music Hall back in the previous century, when I was still alive, more or less.  Also, why does Ed have to sing the verse to Mom and Dad twice? But these are little tiny quibbles for a band that absolutely nails the Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula.  Weasels!  Wish I could find the first CD, Ed Palermo Big Band Plays the Music of Frank Zappa.
	Fast 'N Bulbous:  Pork Chop Blue Around the Rind (Cuneiform) And, if the Ed Palermo tribute to FZ isn't enough nostalgia for you, Philip Johnston and Gary Lucas would like to present you with what is apparently a deranged marching band playing some of Captain Beefheart's greatest hits. In a more user-friendly world, this would be enough to inspire the Captain to come out of retirement in the desert and blast across the country, helping us recover from our long national nightmare of this hellish experiment we are being subjected to, like somehow Nancy Pelosi's gonna fix everything, give me a break...this IS a drive-in restaurant in Hollywood.  But, in the alternative universe CB inhabits, and more power to him, I am sure that, if he is even aware of this recording, he takes it as inspiration to burrow even deeper into his hole, and we are left to our own devices, like, this device...here. See, it's got a doll's foot on one end, and a rifle stock on the other, and, no, it doesn't exactly shoot anything, it's more of a "poot."  Can you say "poot?"  Of course you can.  I like to play Kandy Korn in the car, real loud, over and over.  There's really no other way to explain it.
	John McNeil:  East Coast Cool (OmniTone) Gnarly, vernacular trumpeter McNeil uses the Gerry Mulligan piano-less quartet instrumentation (baritone by Allan Chase) to sculpt well-defined, carefully crafted improvisatory music with just a bit of an edge.  It's architectural, unhurried, and there's always a pulse; the ace rhythm section, Matt Wilson and John Hebert, is carefully set up to support and highlight the soloist(s).  Plus, they play Bernie's Tune.  And, although you couldn't prove it by me, an excerpt from Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, which just fits too closely into my conception of Fifties L.A., and is really no worse than you think it should be, but I like almost everything else better.  A lot better.
	Don Ellis Octet:  Pieces of 8 (Wounded Bird) This octet (three percussionists, three horns, bass and piano), selected from the Turkish Bath band, recorded--no doubt on a Revox A77 with two microphones hung from the proscenium--during Ellis' part-time faculty gig at UCLA, was, apparently, flogged by Ellis on cassette at concerts, and odd re-issue label Wounded Bird Records (check out their website, it's the remainder bin of your mind) has picked it up for your edification.  Rather than the deep sheen of Turkish Bath, it has the rough-edged, almost outta control sound of the Pacific Jazz recordings, and veers between the sublimely hip and the shriekingly frantic, sometime in the same 11-beat measure.  Most of Ellis' best solos and finest arrangements were the slow tunes, but in concerts, he liked to demonstrate how fast his bands could play something in, say, 13/4 (3-3-2-2-3, count it out, it rocks), so you are not going to hear a new Open Beauty, give it up, it's over.  But, Blues for Hari, that could easily be Horace Silver, or Les McCann on a good day.  They play Milestones.  Ellis completists will want to drive to Tower Records right now to check this out (oh, wow, man, it's closed.  Bummer), the rest of you will probably pass.   As far as I can tell, none of the Ellis originals on this recording appear on any other recording, and a quick look at the Ellis collection of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Department (Google "Hindustani Jazz Sextet"--did you know they opened for Janis Joplin at the Fillmore?) shows there are dozens of tunes that have never been released.  Has Wounded Bird come to some arrangement with UCLA?  Could there actually be a badly recorded Hindustani Jazz Sextet CD in our future?
	Donald Harrison:  New York Cool (Half Note)  Ron Carter is the intersection between this trio and the gold standard for modern saxophone trios:  Joe Henderson's State of the Tenor.  While I found that recording highly directed, having been arranged by Don Sickler, this is a more ad hoc trio, in a sense jazzier, looser, maybe not entirely for the better.  Carter is, here, more idiosyncratic, more likely to fall back on old tricks, and Billy Cobham is definitely not Al Foster. Foster is deferential to a fault, while Cobham likes to call attention to himself, the good news being that he actually is interesting, if not consumed in excess.  This is not to say that Al Foster is not interesting, just that he seems to prefer to be in back, supporting the front men (or women), while Billy Cobham--the anti-Motian--just naturally thinks that he should be in front exactly 1/3 of the time.  However, he is under control here, there are no drum synthesizers involved, and I find his solos, like Tony Williams', entertaining.  Harrison seems to take a lot of cues from Henderson, with the questioning tone Joe had on his later records.  I liked the studio recording of this trio, Heroes (see below), and I like this one.
	Dave Douglas:  Keystone (Greenleaf) Douglas, usually the most cerebral of trumpeters, having recovered from his tenure with Bluebird, where he and Eliane Elias were apparently the only living musicians in the catalog (maybe Vincent Price ran the label), bounces back with a dynamite band.  Producer David Torn gives the music some muscle, and lots more focus than on Freak In and The Infinite, two recordings among Douglas' multitude where there were similar electronic interests.  If you've ever seen Torn live (I saw him with the lamented Everyman Band), you know he's the guy to do it, he is the master of the sneaky music gizmo.  Jamie Saft (see below) makes good use of a Wurlitzer something-or-other for a Silent Way feel, and Marcus Strickland (see way below) shines on soprano.  Gene Lake plays crisp drums, Brad Jones plays muddy, low, electric bass, and DJ Olive provides amusing color on turntables.  I think this is what Terence Blanchard and Nicholas Payton are trying to accomplish on their recent turgid fusion efforts, below, but here, it works, there are real tunes and solos, which are actually served well by the sound effects and the editing tricks.  Plus, there's a DVD, featuring Roscoe Arbuckle.  I don't find that the music fits the film at all, Andrew got bored in the middle and wandered off, but it's still more fun than I deserve.
	Marc Johnson:  Shades of Jade (ECM)  Marc Johnson has appeared, often with Joey Baron, on some of my favorite piano trio recordings of the past decade, including several CDs with the sublime Enrico Pieranunzi, and Martial Solal's trés fabulous Triangle (with Peter Erskine), and I guess being Bill Evans' final bass player does give him some added authority.  As a leader, he has cranked out--like clockwork--one new record every five years, the last one being The Sound of Summer Running, which Nancy particularly likes as being not as ugly or obscure as the music I usually listen to (I play Chunga's Revenge at least once a week, and, by the way, you should, too).  As a collaboration with his wife, Eliane Elias, Jade had the potential for disaster written all over it, domestic, like Easter, not being one of jazz' stronger categories (Cleo Laine with John Dankworth, feh).  I was initially struck by how little appeared to be going on, the solos are not very assertive, John Scofield--the man who wrote The Boss' Car--is so reserved he almost ceases to exist, and Joe Lovano is there more to provide color than anything else, and I am not a big fan of Joe Lovano's color, it's a kinda monkeyshit brown you might have seen on a 1971 Hornet.  I didn't think Elias, with whom I am admittedly not that familiar, played anything that actually would constitute a solo in, say, the Bill Evans sense.  There seemed to be no center to the music, and everybody was just floating around that nonexistent center, but the more I listened to it, the more the bagelness became a virtue, giving the music a floating, weightless texture.  Now, I really like it.  Wish they had Ted Nash play instead of Lovano, though, I need a break from Lovano, even though he still beats the stuffing out of Charles Lloyd.  The sequencing's a little weird, the CD clearly climaxes with the gospel-tinged Raise, and then there's two more tracks which, at first, seem out of place, but the last, Don't Ask of Me, is an arco bass solo that sounds written, but also sounds fabulous, although Johnson is only credited with playing bass, it sounds like a cello, is he really playing a bass?  I don't believe it.
	Paul Motian:  Garden of Eden & I Have The Room Above Her (ECM):  I heard Terry Gross interview Paul Motian on Fresh Air last week.  Like every sentient American, I have heard hundreds of Terry's interviews, and this one was, without a doubt, the worst one ever; all she wanted to talk about was Bill Evans junkie stories.  It made me think that maybe Gene Simmons had a point.  Motian was dignified, he attempted to deflect the conversation, and kept his cool, of which he appears to have an endless supply.   There is no doubt that he is one of the great originals in jazz, and maybe that is why there is so much buzz concerning these releases; he is, after all, a member of what was arguably the greatest postwar jazz trio, and we should honor the late-life work of people who made major breakthroughs.  But, the point of Room, like the Charles Lloyd fiasco, below, eludes me; except for the title track, Motian wrote all the pieces, he is just not a very interesting composer, and Lovano needs structure to do his best work.  On Lovano's Joyous Encounter, below, Motian (and Lovano) performed brilliantly, but, here, Lovano falls back on his most hackneyed mannerisms, sounds frankly exhausted, and Motian seems to be going to great lengths to obliterate any pulse that might develop.  Where is Roy Haynes when you need him? Frisell can function in an amorphous environment, and he tries gamely to sustain some interest, but Room is already in the remainder bin.  Meanwhile, we have the Paul Motian Band's (formerly the Electric Be Bop Band) Garden of Eden to, hopefully, sustain some compositional interest.  With three, count 'em three, electric guitarists and two saxes, the possibilities for a muddle are endless, but bassist Jerome Harris knows that Mingus is waiting for him, and that it would be unwise to screw around with Pithecanthropus Erectus and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.  But, then, again, a block of Motian standards take the air out of the tires, and nothing worthwhile happens until Evidence.  When Motian names something Endless, he's not kidding.  Motian should have retained the band name, and stuck to the concept.  Drab.
	Gregory Tardy:  Abundance (Palmetto) Derek Montogomery reminded me, in reference to Andrew Hill's new release on Blue Note, that I had this 2001 Palmetto recording with George Colligan, Sean Conly and Woody Williams, and that it had gotten lost in the shuffle.  I was not familiar with Conly and Williams, but I am now, they constitute a muscular foundation to the band, thereby pushing Colligan more upfront than on Buster Williams' Griot Liberte, below, where he seems to recede into the mix.   Tardy, who primarily plays tenor, is less prickly than, say, Greg Osby, and somewhat more melodic than some of the bigger names below; he goes out, but I don't get bored.  The interplay between Tardy and bass player Conly is particularly cool.  Colligan gets lots of space, and uses it for some interesting experiments that seem to me like early Cecil Taylor or the music that Herbie Hancock ought to be playing instead of producing disappointing fusion releases.   The more I play it, the more I like it.
	Fred Hersch:  In Amsterdam, Live at the Bimhuis (Palmetto) In spite of his ability to channel Bill Evans, Hersch has never seemed entirely comfortable fronting a trio.  While he is certainly capable of trioism, it seems to constrain him, and he tends to play alongside the bass and drums rather than engage in the kind of exchange we have come to expect in the post-Evans era.  In a lengthy Times piece promoting his upcoming solo gig at the Village Vanguard, he made a big deal about how the latest solo effort came about, alleging that he misplaced his trio one night and, forced to play all by himself, suddenly discovered how much he enjoyed it.  Why he bothers with this explanation, I do not know, since I have lots of Fred's solo records on Nonesuch.  Maybe because the solo jazz performance is fraught with danger, since the improvising performer does not even have the cover of the written score, and could at any point slip over into total solipsism, like when every member of The Eagles had to make a solo album.  And Fred has a tendency to get just a little self-absorbed, runs the risk of turning pretentious on us, I mean, Leaves of Grass, was that really necessary, Danger Will Robinson, crossover alert!  But, he negotiates the boundary beautifully on this recording, walks right up to the line and leans over it, but never crosses it.  He pushes a Jobim composition, O Grande Amor, almost to the point of boogie-woogie, and then moves into free time, but it turns out to be Jimmy Rowles' The Peacocks, which ends up sounding like the end music for a nice, sour detective story.  In the end, it all works.  Interesting set list, beautiful instrument, nice recording, too.   I just came from hearing Fred do this at the Kerrytown Concert House.  Having just completed a  week-long solo gig at the Village Vanguard, Fred is of course completely, even preternaturally, self-assured; I have no idea how much is pre-conceived and how much is a high-wire act, but he makes it sounds like he's making it up on the spot and not sweating while doing it.  Fred is certainly one of the most two-handed pianists in jazz, no Bud Powell stabs at the bass against single-note runs for him.  And there's no slouching off for the listeners, you have to pay attention, this is not music you can let wash over you while you consider whatever it is you consider (I know what I consider and I'm not saying).  The set list was eclectic:  Rogers & Hammerstein, Monk (note to Fred:  play more Monk), Irving Berlin, Fats Waller & Joni Mitchell, but no Nirvana, what's with that?  I think only one of the pieces, one of Fred's own, was repeated on the Bimhuis list.  It may not be to every moldy fig's taste, but I am hard pressed to think of another solo performer operating at this level today.   Maybe Richie Beirach; I haven't heard Gonzalo Rubacalba's latest solo recording, he's certainly got the capacity, but has he got the focus?
	Russ Freeman, Richard Twardzik, Jimmy Rowles and Clare Fischer:  The Pacific Jazz Piano Trios (Mosaic Select) Lately, the focus at chez Normolle has been the acquisition of 50s and 60s jazz on vinyl, and no, we're not telling you where we're getting it, but the difficulty in obtaining good copies of this material at less than stratospheric prices made the Mosaic set attractive, even if it is on the odious CD medium (OK, Mosaic is about as minimally odious as possible).   All things West Coast are in relative disrepute in contemporary jazz judgment because, I believe, the East Coast is perceived to have been blacker and hence more authentic, which would have probably been a surprise to artists like Hampton Hawes, Sonny Criss and Horace Tapscott.  And Ornette Coleman.  Oh, and Mingus.  And, it's important to remember that while the common image of Southern California during the 50s is convertibles and blond babes in bikinis, this is inaccurate, because the bikini was considered decadent and European until the early 60s, and  Los Angeles, during the 1950s, was home to a sizable expatriate Eastern European (hence not sufficiently decadent) intellectual community whose influence was widespread enough to have reached the jazz world, although, on the downside, it may have actually contributed to the delay in the introduction of the bikini. Yes, I blame Theodor Adorno.  I guess my point, which was distracted by the bikini concept, is that Southern California 50s jazz was not all Chet Baker.  Russ Freeman, who did indeed work with Chet Baker, presents work that is, considering the work with Baker, surpisingly dense, yet quite accessible.  I have the Dick Twardzik set on previously victimized vinyl, and I think that he is primarily notable as a tragic curiosity (early dope victim), I just don't have Twardzik Fever (which is probably a good thing, because, Twardzik-wise, this is it, the remaining recordings as a sideman are trés obscure).   Jimmy Rowles is, as always, Jimmy Rowles--a good thing.  The big surprise here, though, is a 1962 Clare Fischer set with Gary Peacock that so well presages Bill Evans' work with Peacock on Evans' fine Verve release Trio '64 that it causes one to wonder how much of that set's conception was due to Evans and how much was due to Peacock.  The second Fischer set has a more soul jazz flavor to it, and is rich and pleasing, even though Fischer plays with something of an arranger's sensibility.  But, I liked it so much, as soon as I played it, I played it again.  I wish I could say as much about most contemporary recordings.
	Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall (Blue Note/Thelonious)  Man, this is so wrong, the biggest new jazz release of 2005 is Trane and Monk.  Followed closely by Sonny Rollins.  Forget the historic lost tapes blah blah blah, this is no curiosity, this is rock 'n roll!  Trane already at this point sounds like nobody else in the world except maybe, sometimes,  Cannonball, and Monk is deconstructing everything in sight, sparks are just flying off him.   They are absolutely comfortable together, firing off ideas at each other while Shadow Wilson and Ahmed Abdul-Malik relentlessly march alongside.  At the very least, the finest live Monk recording ever made.  The rest of the year will simply be a letdown.  The sound, courtesy of VOA, is pretty good, but mono, if that bothers you.  Of course, hispters prefer it.
	Tom Guarna:  Get Together (SteepleChase)  OK, so I was visiting Schoolkids' Records, where I get most of this stuff, to pick up a copy of the new Monk & Trane CD, because Monk & Trane are what's happenin' today, right?  And the proprietor, Steve Bergman, asks me if I've heard the new Tom Guarna, and I start to rant about how much I disliked Guarna is on George Colligan's  Realization, below.  Steve shuts me up, not easy, puts on this CD.  Holy guacamole, it's tasty!  Great organ trio, Guarna could be Grant Green, they play mostly standards, a few originals nobody will ever hear again.  I am not familiar with organist Gary Versace, he is very laid back, knows how all the buttons work, plays the pedals.  Mark Ferber, on drums, swings very subtly.  It will make you want to invite friends over to drink beer and play cards (one of my two objective criteria for fine recorded music).  The whole thing is nicely set up, and makes my previous experience all the more unfortunate.  We'll just pretend that never happened.
	Don Ellis:  Essence (Mighty Quinn/Pacific Jazz)  Before the seminal Turkish Bath on Columbia, Pacific Jazz released two Don Ellis big band albums, and before that, allegedly released Essence; although I have been aware of the album's existence for over 20 years, I have never actually seen a copy until UPS dropped it off yesterday (although having seen it, I would rather listen to it, what were they thinking?).  According to Michael Cuscuna's notes, Essence was the last small-band recording Ellis made; there are a couple prior to Essence on Candid, which don't get much traction, and New Ideas on Prestige, which is a stunning album, maybe the only Third Stream record that really worked, John Cage meets Jelly Roll Morton (in the person of Jaki Byard).  While Essence is not quite that sublime, it is damn close, and it is a mystery why it has languished for forty years.  Ellis moves off the mark fast on Strayhorn's Johnny Come Lately, sounding like the unholy spawn of Dave Douglas and Wynton, propelled by Gary Peacock, in Red Mitchell mode, Paul Bley, prior to his noodly weirdo phase, and two drummers (on two different days) of whom I have never heard, Gene Stone and Nick Maritinis, both of whom do just fine, thank you, although not quite Steve Bohannon fine.  There are a number of standards (and I count Wrong Key Donkey as a standard), Ellis originals and Ellis original oddities, the sequencing is good and the sound is spectacular; Dick Bock liked a bright, dynamic sound, which was prone to overmodulation on the pressing, sometimes on the tape.  This sound has the brightness, but there is no hint of overdriving; maybe here is some digital magic that actually works.  I thought that Wynton sounded like Ellis in a couple places on Live At The House of Tribes, below; maybe he's been pointing those big ears in Ellis' direction?  Maybe it's time for the LCJO to do an Ellis tribute?  Wynton could play the living s**t out of Indian Lady. Yeah, the Palo Alto version.  Man, now that would be fun.  We could use some fun, for a change.
	Ted Nash & Odeon:  La Espada de la Noche (Palmetto) Nash is a downtown tenor player affiliated with the Jazz Composer's Alliance, and the guiding light behind the excellent Still Evolved, below; this is a tango-flavored crossover project, and, as such, any evaluation must touch upon the issue of authenticity (I know, that's a crutch, it's all just music and should be approached with naive wonder and joy and I should just love it all.  You think that because you are stealing it off the Web).  What is authentic?  To Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker was not authentic.  So, there is no absolute standard of authenticity, nonetheless, are these tangos, or not?  Is this jazz, or not?  Could be both, but then, what does the tango-ness do to the jazz-ness?  Well, it guts the music of all the swing.  Sure, there's plenty of drama, but in that 4AM Buenos Aires sleek black dress sense, which is fun to imagine--yes, I am liking the little black dress--but I'm an 11PM Midwestern beer-and-chips guy, and I look like a fool on the dance floor, and don't even ask about the shirt open to the navel.  What does the jazz-ness do to the tango-ness?  Who knows, I'm the wrong guy to ask.  The music is played well, it's occasionally funny, but it reminds me of performance art, once you're told the concept, you don't need the actual performance.  YMMV, maybe you will listen to this over and over, me, I'd rather hear Idle Moments again.  I think there's one thing we can agree on, though, there should be a moratorium on the Concerto de Aranjuez. Let's give it a rest for, say, fifty years and then take it out and see if we still like it.  OK?
	Sonny Rollins:  Without a Song (Milestone) Recorded in Boston just after 9/11, this recording was made by a fan who, according to a wonderful Crouchly profile that appeared this summer in the New Yorker, follows Rollins around and tapes all his concerts, and has them stashed in Maine.  Crouch identifies the issue wth Rollins' concerts:  while always competent, Rollins does sometimes just phone it in, but, if the planets are aligned, and they frequently are, Rollins is magisterial, far beyond what any other jazz musician is capable of, a perfect admixture of the intellectual and the celebratory.  This is one such concert.  Most astonishing is Rollins' energy level, which amazes the younger musicians he works with.  Crouch interviews long-time bassist Bob Cranshaw:  "The books say he is seventy-five years old, but he is much older than that.  I have heard him proudly refer to his sons Louis and Coleman."  Cranshaw took another pull from his pint of bourbon, hunched down and lowered his voice to a whisper.  "It's terrible, I don't know how much longer I can take it.  We go into a town, and all the spirit drains out of the other saxophone players.  They can't do anything, they lose their life force.  I mean, look at poor Charles Lloyd, that's just scary.  And he's got the younger ones doing it too, have you noticed how Stephen Scott is playing better?  And singing along with his solos?   Do you think it's a coincidence that Keith Jarrett complains he's tired all the time?"  The band, as always, purrs along behind Rollins, there's not much in the way of interaction, but a surprise for me on this recording was long-time Rollins associate, trombonist Clifton Anderson, who has several very satisfying solos.  Let's hope, as Crouch promises, there is more of this to come.  But please, Sonny, leave Charles Lloyd alone, he's suffered enough. Footnote:  I saw Sonny Rollins last night (10/1/05), with Anderson, Bobby Broom, a mysteriously youthful Bob Cranshaw, and Al Foster.  Rollins shambled onto stage, he does the old-man walk now.  While there are plenty of other players who have an ironic sensibility and can play as many notes, Michael Brecker and Greg Osby--and, yes, David Binney--come to mind, Rollins has the singular ability to make all those notes into melodies, an ability which modern players seem to have lost.  Players from the trad and historicist camps, from Warren Vache to Wynton, still have the melodies, but they seem to have lost the edge, you never get the feeling that, say, Bill Charlap is leaving his comfort zone, which is what makes jazz exciting and not just something on PBS.  I want to see the horn player sweat.  Sonny sweats, you get the feeling, after he warms up, which takes a few minutes--I hope I can warm up at all when I'm his age--that he has a bunch of new things he is going to try tonight, and, when he starts some solos, he has no idea whatsoever where he is going to end up.   And he does this in a big room in front of thousands of people.  This is exciting.  He no longer can solo for an hour straight (I have seen and heard him do this), or jump into the orchestra pit while playing, but, aside from these modest concessions to age, he is still--sorry Ted, Joe, Joshua, Ravi, Joel and Branford--the SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS.  Accept no substitutes.
	Wynton Marsalis:  Live at the House of Tribes (Blue Note)  Wynton performing with a small group in front of a small, very vocal audience, even louder than Ramsey Lewis' The In Crowd.  Wynton's opening solo on Green Chimneys is stunning, a long, twisty thing that recalls Paul Gonsalves flipping out choruses at Newport like he was dealing  cards.  "You like this one?  Here's another.  Wait, I got another.  And another. Here's a different one.  Two more, not the same.  And another..."  I believe Monk would have liked it, because Wynton solos on the melody, not the changes.  He remains the most consistently entertaining trumpeter in jazz, and I mean that in a good way.  Wessell Anderson I am less impressed with, he seems to run out of ideas pretty fast, and sounds frankly flat to me on some passages.  As he was soloing for what seemed like a very long time on What is This Thing Called Love, Nancy gave me a look that I believe meant What is This Thing You Are Playing and Why Don't You Go Make Supper?  The rhythm section is very nimble throughout, although Eric Lewis' piano sounds funny, like it's been prepared.  Expectations are set so high for Wynton's recordings, that even a good record, like The Magic Hour, below, seems like a disappointment; I think that The Magic Hour will actually wear better, partly because, for jazz records to really work, there has to be a little mystery, things you don't get the first time and need to puzzle out, and that is not this concert, it is accessible to a fault. Also, the audience-as-participant conceit sounds cute at first--I mean, that's the way a jazz club really ought to be, right?  Everybody having a great time, and not afraid to express their appreciation, or have a little side conversation, it's not the goddamn St. Petersburg Philharmonic--but you get tired of those people pretty fast on repeated playings.  I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.  It's OK.  It's not Way Out West.
	George Colligan's  Mad Science:  Realization (Sirocco)  There's a secret word that describes this sort of effort.  No, it's not "mud shark."  I vote for "lugubrious."  Maybe that's not quite right, but I like the sound of the word enough, I'll use it anyway.  The concept here appears to be music that would be beloved by, as the band name Mad Science implies, the makers of It Conquered the Earth. Alas, the concept is not quite enough to support an entire album, although that specific film was the inspiration for FZ's Cheepnis, which, on Live at the Roxy and Elsewhere, was a helluva lot more fun than this.  The music comes closes to reaching cruising speed when Colligan approaches mainstream B3 jazz; as he moves away from that, towards the concept, the engines stall.  Part of the blame must be attached to ham-fisted drummer Rodney Holmes, and to guitarist Tom Guarna, who does OK in a supporting role, but solos in the dreaded Al Dimeola fusionesque style much beloved of TV sports highlights producers and readers of Guitar Player. Colligan fools around with the electronics a little, but, being perhaps too cautious, sounds like someone who's still learning what the different buttons do, which is a fatal error in a world full of people who, unlike Colligan, have no talent at all for either melody or harmony, but amazing facility for manipulating aural textures.  George, if you're gonna do it, you've got to go all the way!  I would suggest a crash course in Aphex Twin and Chemical Brothers.  A disappointing misstep from a usually smart player (see Agent 99 and Past-Present-Future, below, and the older releases on FSNT), joining similarly half-hearted crossovers from Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, below, all of whom have failed to absorb the idiom.  What could be done to fix this up?  I have two more secret words:  Transylvania Boogie.
	John Zorn/Jamie Saft Trio:  Astaroth (Tzadik)  Lest here be confusion, heaven forbid, this is Jamie Saft, Greg Cohen and Ben Perowsky play the compositions of John Zorn, yet somehow this is a 'John Zorn' recording, which I hardly think is fair.  I guess it's because Zorn is a composer; the blurb accompanying this CD claims that he 'wrote over 300 new tunes for his popular Masada project,' which I guess is fair if you count Paul Gonsalvez as having composed 27 new tunes at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1956.  C'mon, John, Shut Up And Play Yer Alto! Sorry.  Anyway, there are ten ground-breaking compositions by modern genius composer John Zorn (sorry) on Astaroth, each one representing an angel, some of which I am familiar with (Ariel, Ezeqeel), and some of which I am not (Baal-Leor, Shalmiel and Myron), this not, as a militant agnostic, being my day job.  However, I like the concept of representing angels for adults, that is, as mysterious and really pretty scary things, I applaud world-renowned intellect Zorn (sorry) for doing his part in seizing the concept back from the sentimental infantile Religious Right.  Because the world really is, after all, full of mysteries.  Some of these portraits have what Anthony Coleman has described as the Sephardic Tinge, others are a little more obscure in origin, originally sounding a little too out, but revealing more structure on repeated listening. These more outside pieces break up what might otherwise be a somewhat unvaried program, and assist one in listening carefully to these nuggets, revealing cool grooves and some pretty tunes, too.  Saft, with whom I am not too familiar, supports the material well, sounding, as does Uri Caine when he's actually playing the piano (see below), like a kind of postmodern (maybe post-International Style would be better) Herbie Hancock, or maybe Al Haig's grandson. Perowsky supports expertly, and Greg Cohen, as always, is rock solid.  Yes, In Greg Cohen We Trust.  In a way, more jazzy than Bill Charlap.
	Bill Charlap:  Plays Gershwin The American Soul (Blue Note)  I hope you're not looking forward to me criticizing Charlap for playing nothing but Gershiwn, I think that possibly ought to be a requirement for a union card.  Blue Note is apparently now marketing Charlap the way Sony sold Wynton, he is the new gold standard; this is the class act.  So here, after the Bernstein project, which I enjoyed, we have the working trio with, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Top Shelf Horns, sounding as suave as they, well, really are.  Like Clark Terry, Frank Wess can bring those decades of experience to bear on every note, he is Coleman Hawkins or Don Byas, buffed to perfection, every corner sanded with absolute precision by you-know-who (no, not Lord Voldemort).  Maybe Phil Woods can no longer set the room on fire, reeling across the stage to suddenly engage in a mad scramble up the trellis with Bill Goodwin, but that was 25 years ago (I helped set up the chairs that had been rented from a local funeral parlor), and he can still sound like Johnny Hodges morphing into Charlie Parker (he's channeling Rabbit on Bess).  Nicholas Payton and Slide Hampton are there, too.  The whole project is like a Basie small unit, but so, so thoughtful.  Listen to Liza, then listen to Monk play it on Monk, which do you like better? Which is jazzier?  Charlap has worked  hard, so hard, on this music, that's it's no longer jazz, it's an idea about, a reference to, jazz, the other end of Stravinsky imagining Ragtime before he had actually heard any.  Now, it's as if we've all heard too much.  There is so much ugly music, even ugly jazz (see below), and this is surely better--for one thing, it reminds me of something the recently deceased Lyle Murphy might have put on Gone With The Woodwinds, I love stuff like that--but I really like Charlap even more on 2gether, below, with Warren Vache (who, if anything, is even more rearwards-looking than any of the horns here), just because  in the duets, Charlap doesn't have the chance to think so much, he just has to play, which he really can do.  By the way, the recording here is not as good as the Bernstein recording, the bottom end is still OK, but the drums are muffled, increasingly digitized, and the piano sounds funny, too.  Joel, from now on, go straight to analog two-track, it'll be better.  Trust me.  Especially if you can convince BN to start pressing LPs again.  Now, that would be a class act.
	Ravi Coltrane:  In Flux (Savoy) In Flux is a maybe too-appropriate title for this recording.    Like Fly (below), also on Savoy, there is a mixture of pieces that are short and abstract, some ballads, and a few that actually verge on cooking, something that seems virtually anathema to jazz musicians today.  I like the abstract sketches less, I admit it, I like the groove, or I like the song.  All the band members contribute to the compositions, which are heavily Wayne-influenced.  I am not familiar with the work of pianist Luis Perdomo, and, after hearing this recording, I still feel somewhat unfamiliar with him, he seems almost superfluous to what's going on, while Drew Gress, who has worked a lot with Fred Hersch, works well off EJ Strickland, who sits somewhere on the Paul Motian-Roy Haynes axis. Coltrane's soprano work is especially cool, he sounds like Wayne, but with a pleasing tone, something that is notoriously hard to achieve on the soprano.  Between this and Mad 6, Ravi Coltrane seems, to me, to be differentiating.
	Dizzy Gillespie - Charlie Parker, Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (Uptown) Al Haig is tentative, Max Roach is too loud, Curly Russell is inaudible, and Bird and Diz are beyond belief.  What is remarkable about these sides is the demonstration that early be-bop was not just about speed; here, at their best, the high priests not only had the velocity, but articulation and phrasing that still curl the moldy fig's toes.  When John Lewis referred to "instant composition," this is what he meant.  Dizzy not only plays all his solos in a range that most trumpeters save for their big finale, he plays so many notes so fast that you can't figure out how he could imagine them, let alone somehow spit them all out.  But he's not running changes, he's playing tunes, melodies he continually redeveloped for the next fifty years (I had "masticated" there, but it sounded just a little too bovine).  Bird, looking lean and healthy in the photo, was firing on all eight cylinders, and everybody just sounds happy, except maybe Symphony Sid.  The sound quality is wonderful for a lve 1945 recording; at this stage, acetate was a mature technology and, in the hands of professionals, had a you-are-there quality magnetic tape couldn't match for another decade.
	Shorty Rogers:  Bossa Nova - Jazz Waltz (Collectables)  I suppose, in 1962, critics complained about these records in exactly the same aggrieved tone of voice that I reserve for Joshua Redman, below.  The material's dated, he's trying too hard to be hip, the concepts (bossa nova jazz and jazz in 3/4) are too restricting, etc.  I promise I will revisit my review of Momentum, below, in twenty years and revise it accordingly, OK?  Meanwhile, these arrangements did end up in your local high school jazz ensemble's book, but your high school jazz ensemble never played them like this.  Top-shelf West Coast talent throughout, egged along by the likes of Mel Lewis.  This stuff would be irresistible live.  Almost every piece starts out sort of corny, and then some figure gets developed into a riff and all of a sudden, there goes the rhythm section, watch your head!  And, did you know that Duke Ellington and Peggy Lee wrote I'm Gonna Go Fishin' (and catch me a trout)?  That's worth $13.98 right there.  After multiple failed attempts to locate these sessions on vinyl, I reluctantly bought the Collectables reissue; I generally try to avoid this label because they do things like drop tracks so they can squeeze two LPs on one CD.  In this case, both full albums are there, but would it have killed them to list the personnel?  Collectible, my ass...
	Paul Chambers:  Mosaic Select 5 (Mosaic) From 1956-9, John Coltrane, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Drew, Donald Byrd, Kenny Burrell, Horace Silver, Clifford Jordan, Elvin Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Pepper Adams, Hank Jones, Art Taylor and Art Blakey.  Any further comment would surely be superfluous.
	Joe Lovano:  Joyous Encounter (Blue Note) Paul Motion has a trio with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano, that has been recording for now, what, 20 years?  Their new CD on ECM is supposed to be excellent, but I refuse to buy any more ECM titles until Manfred Eicher personally apologizes to me for that awful Charles Lloyd thing, below.  But the relationship between Motian and Lovano is the key to this quartet; George Mraz and Hank Jones are just tryng to look busy while Motian and Lovano communicate telepathically.  It's fun to compare Motian's contemporary work with the ground-breaking music he played with Bill Evans and Scott La Faro; although the approach of constant communication and absolute awareness is present in both groups--you never get the feeling Motian is on auto-pilot--his work in the late 50s and early 60s now sounds relatively hesitant.  The only guy who touches him in the total awareness department (John Poindexter, take note) is Roy Haynes.  And this is good for this quartet, because Hank Jones, although by nature a quiet sort of pianist, here, as in the past (with brother Elvin or Tony Williams), responds well to drummers who move the beat to unexpected places.  I still have problems with Lovano's mannerisms; he seems to almost swallow phrases sometimes, and he does odd things with pitch that may be intentional, but that I do not find particularly attractive, regardless.  And he can lose the soprano, too, it ain't happenin'.  But the feeling of collective improvisation and surprise suffuses this recording, so we can go to bed tonight knowing that even if George W. Bush is, somehow, still President, at least somebody is out there still playing real jazz.
	Terence Blanchard:  Flow (Blue Note)  Another escapee from the shadow of Wyntons past attempting to revive jazz (It's too late, Jim.  He's dead).  Producer Herbie Hancock, the guy who made Crossings and Headhunters, has some ideas about how to add some space to a recording, and the use of electronics here is more subtle and interesting than on Joshua Redman's recording. Bass player Derrick Hodge earns extra credit for vamps, and there is a little vocalizing and some acoustic guitar that adds unexpected color.  But, again, the problem here is a deficiency in the interesting solo department; everybody is so intent on developing a mood, or texture,or a setting,  that they forget to make up what John Lewis called 'instant compositions,' favoring figures, runs, a whole bag of cliches to fill in the time.  I suppose this is a good-faith effort, and at least it's not just plain butt-ugly like some of the 'avant-garde' contributions below, but I have to benchmark them against Miles' mid-60s quintet; if I am going to listen to music for an hour, why do I want to listen to this rather than Miles and Wayne and Herbie and Ron and Tony?  There's not as much content, the interaction between the musicians is completely eliminated by the recording technique, the solos are, well, not Miles, and the excitement factor is just not there.
	Joshua Redman Elastic Band:  Momentum (Nonesuch) Redman has been the next big thing for at least fifteen years; like Ravi Coltrane, he comes with the baggage of a father who played tenor (I guess Ravi does have just a teensy bit more baggage).  He went to Harvard!  He majored in Political Science!  He cut Anthropology to do jello shots with Yo Yo Ma!  I have never, personally, caught Redman fever; he has seemed somewhat undifferentiated to me, like half a dozen other perfectly competent tenor players trying to figure out what to do with their careers now that jazz is dead.  This particular project, a collaboration with a keyboard player named Sam Yahel, has produced some buzz, apparently because, like the Bad Plus, he doesn't play the usual standards, there are synthesizers, they play Lonely Woman with sound effects, this is the future of jazz blah blah blah. It's a perfectly fine jazz-funk album, it's fun to play in the car, but I don't see that there's anything going on here that Eddie Harris, John Klemmer and David Sanborn didn't do thirty years ago.  Cripes, even Sonny Stitt played the varitone tenor. Then, he died.  The electronics here  are primarily used for color, and sound, frankly, pretty pedestrian to what's going on in Electronica.  It's not teeth-grinding, or stupid, but nobody's breaking any new ground here.  The recording is extremely studio-bound.  Why is he on Nonesuch?  Is this is a good idea?  Is Morton Subotnick somehow involved?  Let's go listen to Sidewinder.  On vinyl.
	Ben Waltzer:  In Metropolitan Motion (FSNT)  This older release from Ben Waltzer popped up, and I immediately GRABBED IT, given my pleasing experience with One Hundred Dreams Ago, below.  Lansing native Waltzer appears with Detroit drummer Gerald Cleaver (as on the later recording), but this time the bass chair--can I say that?--is occupied by Chris Lightcap, and there is, occasionally a second drummer, and saxophonist Bill McHenry.  I like Waltzer's piano in direct proportion to the funkiness of whatever he's playing, frankly, the more impressionistic, meditative pieces sound somewhat hesitant, and if I want ruminations, I will listen to Satie.  Therefore, now listen up, Ben, I like Sooky-Sooky Now and Port Royal more than Prelude #4.  And, in general, he's moved in that direction on One Hundred Dreams Ago, so, I like this less less than the 2004 recording, but more than a lot of the stuff further down this list, and I won't name names, you'll have to go look for yourself.  However, I also like Layla's Dream, which has a Don Friedman sound to me, and you'll see, down there somewhere, I like Don, too.    Uncharacteristically fancy artwork for FSNT, and better sound than usual for them, too, it does not sound as if it were recorded in a Brooklyn bedroom.
	Don Sickler:  Reflections (High Note)  Sickler (who is maybe Andrei Solzhenitsyn's alter ego, check out the photo on the back) is one of the high-concept guys in jazz; he is responsible for, as examples, some of Joe Henderson's later, less wonderful, Verve albums.  But, he is also credited with 'transcriptions and arrangements' for State of the Tenor, maybe the best jazz album of the eighties. I also have a wonderful LP of compositions associated with Kenny Dorham he arranged.  This set is a small-ensemble companion to Joe Lovano's 52nd Street Themes, played with a quintet that includes the not-gone-but-almost forgotten Ben Riley, Monk's drummer from the Columbia years, late of Sphere.  Mr. Riley is one of those drummers, like Shelly Manne, who just makes everybody sound good.  Like Lovano, Sickler seems to thrive in what Gary Giddins memorably referred to as an over-determined environment, which here is to honor several post-bop trumpeters, including one I've never heard of (Lonnie Hillyer) and one I have always frankly dismissed as just not very good (Tommy Turrentine).  Sickler plays flawlessly, which is maybe a little bit ot a problem; like Bob James' Take It From The Top, below, it's not really jazz, but a very high-quality imitation, the kind of recording those NPR people seem to really like.  21st Century CTI?  I liked a lot of those CTIs.  OK, not all of them.  Anyway, it would be interesting to hear Sickler move a little bit out of his comfort zone.   There is spiffy Rudy Van Gelder engineering for you to enjoy.
	George Colligan:  Past-Present-Future (Criss Cross) Colligan's 2005 Criss Cross recording, largely of standards (Kurt Rosenwinkel and David Binney, take notice) features Bill Stewart on drums and Vincente Archer, with whom I am not familiar, on bass.  Colligan's approach to this material is, in some ways, similar to that of Brad Mehdau and Richie Beirach, where the themes expand into vamps that then pry open the songs.  Think of what Coltrane did to My Favorite Things. Cool, sly music by someone who is, apparently, actually interested in playing for the audience, so that they enjoy themselves.  What a concept.   If you like this, you will also want to seek out two of his older recordings on FSNT, Unresolved and Como la vida puede ser, fine music with larger ensembles.
	SF Jazz Collective:  Live (Nonesuch) Live, and 26% off, too.  After the discouraging experiences with the recent releases immediately below, it is a pleasure to note that all is not lost.  The SF Jazz collective, well-led by fusion failure Joshua Redman, has released on Nonesuch material from 2004 tours that are apparently excerpts from more extensive recordings released on their own label.  The arrangements are thoughtful and contemporary takes on mid-50s-style arrangements of the usual sort of soloist-contributed compositions that don't stick, and, surprise!  Ornette Coleman.  Gil Goldstein's  arrangement of Peace, which is, for me, one of Coleman's most striking compositions, manages to add colors to the original without obscuring its stark texture.  I love jazz octets, because there are so many color possibilities, but without the bloated  feeling that afflicts so many big bands.  My one reservation about this octet is that they still sound a little stiff; I wish they would loosen up, get a sound like Charles Mingus' or David Murray's.  Also, they like to open up pieces with interesting, Steve-Reich-like patterns by Stefon Harris, which they fail to develop and lose in the mix.  One would like to hear these patterns used to develop some momentum, as in Dave Holland's band.  Special mention:  Nicholas Payton, having successfully moved out of Wynton's shadow, sounds modern without sounding trendy, the way he did on his own Sonic Trance, below.   Robert Hurst works well with Brian Blade, who manages to be not so inscrutable.  Brian needs to make sure he gets regular vacations from Wayne.  The recording quality, alas, is not so great, although good enough given that they appear to be routine concert checks; I wish they would make a studio recording with James Farber or David Baker.
	Charles Lloyd:  Jumping the Creek (ECM)  Charles Lloyd has always been a mystery to me, and I acquired this, hoping that the usually enjoyable Robert Hurst, and Geri Allen, who has often been a brighter light on other people's records than her own, might be able to generate some heat.  What a schmuck I am.  What is the point here?  There's not a memorable solo, there's no pulse, no tunes, no pleasure, no form.  Focus, man!  (It's no use, Jim.  He's dead.)  I can't imagine who enjoys this stuff.  Lloyd couldn't play a solo you could whistle to save his life, there may be some chemical damage there.  Manfred Eicher should be ashamed of himself for releasing this junk, I guess Keith Jarrett isn't grinding it out fast enough.  Nice cover, though.
	Kurt Rosenwinkel:  Deep Song (Verve)  I have a number of Kurt Rosenwinkel recordings, because, for some time, that was the only way to hear Mark Turner.  Now we can hear Turner with the excellent Fly (see below) and he has been replaced by the somewhat undifferentiated Joshua Redman.  Rosenwinkel was barely OK on those albums, a usually reliable source said this session was one to hear, and Rosenwinkel is joined by Brad Mehldau and Larry Grenadier.  That source proved to be unreliable in this case; the album churns to life when Rosenwinkel sits out, but turns sour whenever he plays.  He now sings along with his leaden solos (and credits himself as a vocalist!), played in an ugly, unvarying tone; we know how much that did for George Benson's career, and Benson could actually play guitar.  He should be sentenced to the Frank Zappa Musical Reformatory and Barbecue, forced to listen to Joe's Garage, Part 2 for two-five years, with time off for bad behavior.  Part of the problem is his 'compositions,' why is it that jazz musicians insist on writing their own material?  You call these songs?  Did your Mac whip these up for you between movie downloads off the Web?  If this is the future of jazz, I want no part of it.  I listened to this and Charles Lloyd on a recent car trip, and was on the verge of driving off the road and ending it all--in Ohio, yet--when I was saved by...
	Anita O'Day:   All The Sad Young Men (Verve)  The dyspeptic, existential Great American Songbook, sung by the smartest, hippest, most indomitably independent person in jazz (maybe excepting Billie Holiday).  Actually, the performance is a little inconsistent; at times, O'Day seems uncertain of the lyrics, or appears to be heading West while the orchestra is going South.  But, then, all of a sudden, there are these moments.  All of the material is off center, who chose these songs, Stephen Sondheim?  O'Day is Marianne Faithfull with a smirk.  Oh, and rhythm.  And a voice.  Gary McFarland was at the top of his game.  Hi Ho, Trailus Boot Whip!
	David Binney:  Bastion of Sanity (Criss Cross)  You have to admire Binney's dedication; I thought that the peculiar arrangements on his previous recordings were part of some thing that he was developing, and that, at some point he would break through and we would grasp what he was getting at--but no, this is what he's getting at, this is what he hears, sour horns playing chunky melodies in unison, followed by formless vamps, and he works on it and works on it.  He actually punches through on  Lester Left Town, where he demonstrates a sensibility as a soloist not unlike John Zorn (whom I think is vastly overrated as a composer and provocateur, and vastly underrated as an altoist), and I thought there was hope.  Then I was subjected to 11 minutes of Try, a bombastic theme followed by a nine-minute vamp with endless obbligatos of despair.  I hate to turn into Philip Larkin, but there is a reason people play standards, because the limitations imposed by the structure inform the content.  And, also, because George Gershwin will always be a better composer than you ever will be, unless you're Cole Porter, and you're not.  And what's wrong with Dan Weiss, can't jazz drummers play jazz anymore, don't they know how to push the soloist, or even create a pulse?  Don't they know in the next world, Elvin and Art will be waiting for them?  I give up, no more new releases for awhile.
	Great Jazz Trio:  Live at the Village Vanguard (Test of Time) Recorded in 1977, Hank Jones made an unlikely match with Tony Williams and Ron Carter, but Tony was relatively subdued and the result was stellar, not just three stars playing in the same room, but a real trio, playing just as beautifully as one could hope.  You can probably find this on vinyl.  My only reservations are the playing length--they could have fit Volume 2 on here, and there are allegedly six hours of tapes (Mosaic, take notice)--and although Ron Carter's interaction with Tony WIlliams as always verges on the telepathic, Ron Carter's instrument sounds like it was in another room that night.
	Peyer|Weber|Stoffner:  Unsung Songs (Tun)  Songs by Gershwin, Berlin, Rogers & Hammerstein...Albert Ayler...Prince (we are SO multi-culti), done in the manner of John Scofield's What We Do.  OK, so it is derivative, but I love What We Do.  Guitarist Flo Stoffner sounds like he (I think Flo's a he, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but if he's the guy on the left of the picture, he looks damn good in those jeans regardless), has absorbed to the bone Scofield and all those Terje Rypdal records that sound the same.  The band  has that Rypdal sound, I can't tell if Christian Weber is playing an amplified double bass, or if they just miked it super close, but he plays these real long notes, and Marius Peyer sounds like Paul Motian, now everybody wants to.  Maybe it's not as original as it ought to be, but these guys, or two guys and a girl, are still young, I enjoyed it, and I'd like to hear more from them.  These guys.  Probably all guys.
	Jewels and Binoculars:  Floater (Ramboy) This is the second offering of Dylan covers (?) from this trio, led by clarinetist Michael Moore, with Lindsey Horner, whom I have not head much from since his work with Myra Melford (he should keep me updated) and Michael Vatcher, in a somewhat more meditative mode than I saw him last Friday night.  In their hands, Dylan's music is remarkably apt for adaptation, evocative but not simplistic, which tends to be the downfall of, for example, Christmas jazz.  Moore, who has several excellent recordings with Fred Hersh under the name Thirteen Ways, moves seamlessly between between abstraction and literalism; sometimes he plays the melody straight, sometimes you have to read the liner notes to figure out where you are.  Vatcher does Paul Motian, while the lead is traded between Moore and Horner.  Given that I think Dylan's hasn't made a good record since Nashville Skyline, I'm surprised I like it.  But I do.  Kinda dead Ramboy production.  Cool package.
	All Ears:  Foamy Wife Hum/Line (Bik Bent Braam/Toondist) After having been stiffed two years ago by the ICP Orchestra, last night I took Paul, with some trepidation, to hear All Ears at the Kerrytown Concert House.  Who wants to have their string pulled by a bunch of Dutch clowns?  But, unlike ICP, which wasted two hours of my life, these Dutch clowns delivered.  This two-CD concert from their last tour demonstrates exactly how.  Clever, mercurial arrangements support solos that veer from swing to out, sometimes in the same bar.  Drummer Michael Vatcher appears to be off his meds, and bassist Wilbert de Joode seems to be in open warfare with his instrument, yet, together with auteur Michiel Braam, who pretends to notice none of this, they produce a solid yet supple foundation that the three horns riff off of.  I have never heard anybody play pocket trumpet as effectively as Herb Robertson, who has the Lester Bowie thing down cold, and more mutes than Wynton.  Frank Gratkowski and Frans Vermeerssen move effortlessly from Raymond Scott to Ornette Coleman, occasionally visiting Duke, or Phil and Quill.  Plus, there's that shtick with the sheet music, which, alas, you cannot see on the CD.  Old Europe wins again.  Good live sound, too.
	Joel Frahm:  The Navigator (Palmetto) Big-sound tenor guy Frahm, with David Berkman, Scott Colley and Billy Drummond, visited the Land of Wayne in 2000.  This is the postcard they sent back.   If you love Adam's Apple or Night Dreamer, then you want to hear this, right now, twice.  Berkman, Colley and Drummond lock right into the more abstract strain of Blue Note 60's groove, and stay there; Berkman is especially good as Herbie, although he's not as good-looking (sorry, Dave).  With the exception of My One And Only Love, all the compositions are generated by Frahm's bandmates or Palmetto contemporaries, but they buck the current trend towards excessive complication, and have produced jazz that is very modern in the Miesian (not Milesian) sense, but with just a tinge of funk.  Fly, below, is maybe more startling, but Turner and Frahm are both very entertaining fellows, with similar technical abilities.  Music like this makes you glad to be a grown-up.
	Kaspar Villaume Trio:  117 Ditmas Avenue (Stunt) Last year, Kaspar Villaume issued a promising quartet recording, which I would like to find for a comparison, except I can't, which is unprecedented and very bad, I never lose anything, this clearly represents yet another negative Bush Administration development.  For this recording, Villaume has misplaced the tenor and replaced the drummer with Jeff 'Tain' Watts, who does indeed infuse the recording with an energy level that was not on the previous recording, I think (but I don't really remember, I am going to lose sleep over this).   However, Villaume, while a technically proficient player, is still relatively undifferentiated, when he plays Toys, he sounds like Herbie Hancock, and when he plays Dansevise, he sounds like McCoy Tyner, and a damn good McCoy Tyner, too (and yes, I know that Tyner did not write that piece, but that's who he sounds like.  Maybe it is because Watts is doing the Elvin Jones thing, almost).  So, Villaume does not have the voice yet that that nice Ben Waltzer has, or even that serious boy Tord Gustavsen, doesn't he play well for a foreigner?  But, that used to be what they said about Wynton, and while listening to lots of vinyl recently, I have noticed that  Tommy Flanagan didn't seem very distinctive until he was in his sixties.  So, I wouldn't worry, Mrs. Villaume, I'm sure the boy will turn out to be something, just give him a few years.
	With Malice towards None:  The Music of Tom McIntosh (IPO) I knew about McIntosh from two places, the recently-arrived Mosaic Jazztet box--McIntosh held the trombone chair after Curtis Fuller--and Tommy Flanagan's super-wonderful Sunset and the Mockingbird, which contained several McIntosh compositions.  This all-star recording (including Benny Golson, James, Moody, Roger Kellaway) of his compositions and arrangements, which includes McIntosh as a supporting player on several cuts (he now is primarily a writer and educator), is so smooth and effortless you hardly notice what's happening, like those 70's Pablo recordings where you just took it for granted--too much for granted--that Dizzy and Oscar and Joe Pass could do it better than anybody else.  There are no rough edges here, but the solos take some very unexpected turns.  The arrangements don't call attention to themselves, but act instead to set up the solos, which are given plenty of space to unfold.  I particularly like the loping tempo on, for instance, Ruptures in the Rapture, which reminds me of La Nevada from Out of the Cool.  Entirely unexpected.
	Warren Vache & Bill Charlap:  2gether (Nagel Heyer)  Duets from Warren Vache on cornet and flugelhorn and piano heartthrob Charlap.  Vache, a trad stalwart of the trad Nagel Heyer label, and Charlap play a program of mostly standards.  Vache's linear, uncomplicated approach fits well with Charlap, who is usually nothing if not restrained, but, compared to Vache, sounds positively Baroque.  No showboating, no noodling, it must be a lot harder than it sounds, even though it sounds damn near perfect.  If I wrote standards, I would want these guys to play them.
	Buster Williams:  Griot Liberte (High Note) This session, with George Colligan, Stefon Harris and Lenny White (is this the same Lenny White from one of the electric Return to Forevers?) is beautifully played and well-recorded, but ultimately seems to pass through without leaving much of a trace.  Williams is a master of the deep groove, but the tunes, mostly original, tend to be rather arch compositions that don't get much traction.   Maybe more standards are called for.  Maybe Sonny Rollins is called for.  Compared to, say Leroy Vinegar's Leroy Walks, which I recently obtained on vinyl, this recording doesn't seem to generate much excitement, it has that 80's Milestone quality; the music's not bad, but you would never grab somebody by the scruff of the neck and demand that they hear this right away (maybe this is why I don't have many friends?).  Stefon Harris plays marimba, and also plays vibes with little or no reverb, which gives him a sound that is immediately recognizable, but also very dry.  OK, I admit it, I want them to dig up Milt Jackson and prop him up, maybe they can get him started again.  Colligan doesn't do anything interesting, although he's certainly capable of it.  Life is full of mysteries.
	Gonzalo Rubalcaba:  Paseo  (Blue Note)  Rubacalba's Supernova (2001) was an exciting, smart Latin jazz album, with great interaction between the players, an interesting program and Rubalcaba's extraordinary technique.  The emphasis on that recording was jazz, rather than Latin.   The emphasis on this recording is noodling; the rhythms are complex, the compositions tricky, the solos boring.  At its best, it reminds me of Weather Report that I had forgotten, and now I remember why.  The dead giveaway is the multiple studios for recording, for mixing, for sequencing, and for post-digital whatever, and the credits to the many, many engineers who have fiddled with the recording, which, by the way, sounds it.  These guys would fit right in at Telarc.  The use of electric bass is unusual, in that Jose Armando Gola tends to play very low, sustained notes, which is different from both a standard upright and the Jaco Pastorius really low guitar style, but this in and of itself hardly supports interest for an hour and then some.   Too precious.  Too bad.
	Clark Terry & Max Roach:  Friendship (Eighty-Eights)  When geezers collide.  This is a quartet album, including Terry's regular pianist (and one of my faves) Don Friedman, who does not particularly stand out, but Roach and Terry also play some duets and some solos.  It seems like an odd pairing, Clark Terry being the last standing Ellingtonian, and a minor one at that (while a wonderful musician, he played in later Ellington orchestras, where no Ellington history was made), and Max Roach being an ex-angry young man, along with Roy Haynes, the last drummer around who played with Bird.  I suppose it's because when I started listening to jazz thirty-five years ago, Roach seemed young and Terry seemed old, although in fact Terry is only four years older.   Roach is appropriately subdued, but still plays the way he did at twenty or even forty years ago, with a leaner sound than Blakey, and not quite as flaky as Haynes.   Terry plays beautiful melodies with a rich tone, making us recall how much we miss Art Farmer, but he can still play the sly old cat, too.  Not a great set, on the scale of jazz, but, of course it's better than any pop release from last year.  If you bought anything recorded by someone in their bedroom studio, you should have gotten this instead.  Indisputable high point:  Terry does not play Mr. Mumbles.  But, he can if he wants, it's OK by me.  After all, I used to play Bid Whist with Mr. Mumbles.
	Ben Waltzer Trio:  One Hundred Dreams Ago (FSNT)  Who is this guy, and why wasn't he on my radar?  Maybe it's because he looks from the record cover to be eighteen years old (he claims in fact to be older).  Steve Bergman at Schoolkids' turned me onto this.  Ben's got a serious Herbie Nichols thing going. Who, besides Frank Kimbrough, can say that?  He's got originals that sound like standards, and plays standards, too.  Tord Gustavsen (see below) better do something interesting quick if he wants to keep up.  I like that Matt Penman (on bass), too, never heard of him, either.  Wow.
	Matt Wilson Quartet:  Humidity (Palmetto) Wilson revisits the territory of early Dejohnette Special Edition with saxes Andrew D'Angelo and Jeff Lederer,and muscular bass player Yosuke Inoue.  All originals (except for a very cool Our Delight), Ornette-ish (even Our Delight) without curdling, a little outside, with a solid rhythmic foundation, thereby obeying (usually) Normolle's first law of avant-garde jazz -- you can do anything if you just keep the beat.  And of course, better when it does, all musicians should ask my opinion before releasing their records, dontcha know?  Wilson reminds me of Bobby Previte or Max Roach, emphasizing colors and interplay more than bravura.  Wilson's early records were not as interesting as I thought they should be, given the players, but he seems to have caught up to his promise on this recording and the previous release, Arts and Crafts.   Go, man, go.  Features the usual excellent Palmetto production, but I wish Balitsaris wouldn't pan the drums all the way across the mix, because on a revealing system like The Rig, it sounds like three tiny front-line musicians with a huge drummer in back.  Or, maybe he really is fourteen years old and eighteen feet tall, which would explain the cover photograph.  Stranger things have happened.
	Bill Charlap Trio:  Somewhere (Blue Note) Fifty years after Andre Previn, Red Mitchell and Shelly Manne, jazz purists still complain about surveys of musicals.   I'm not sure exactly why; it's not like standards, either Cole Porter's or jazz' own, are anathema.  Here, playing with a trio (Peter Washington and Kenny Washington) with some years' common experience, Charlap explores tunes from West Side Story, On The Town, Candide and Wonderful Town.  Like Bob James' recent release, below, or Previn's work, this does has the flavor of music that is not jazz but a cracking good imitation.  Or, maybe it's just that they've tried every possible device out in any number of clubs, and now they have carefully ranked and selected the very best bits for the record.  Since I am not of the only-pure-improvisation-is-jazz school, I don't object to this, although, in spite of the considerable technical ability of the players, they have somehow managed to create a sense of drama without too much surprise.  Charlap is an elegant player who has been, at times, labeled sentimental, but now that Tommy Flanagan and John Lewis are gone, there is an opening in the elegance department, so maybe we should risk the sentimentalism.  Maybe, because his mother was a singer, he defaults to lyricism rather than to more abstract concerns.  He certainly seems like somebody who really wants to be accompanying a chick singer.   But, it's hard to imagine how to listen to Cool or America without some sentimentality, given the evocative nature of the music; Rita Moreno will always be in our hearts.  The arrangements are dynamic and vigorous without being dissonant or angry, but you almost don't notice the solos.  This is not the kind of jazz that makes you sit up and think "What the f**k was that?"  But who makes that kind of jazz anymore?  It's just not a matter of being out, because how can you make weirder noises than Albert Ayler or Cecil Taylor?   If you could, what kind of person would enjoy listening to that?  Meanwhile, I don't know who Joel Moss is, but he's engineered one hell of a recording here, and gets the nether regions of the bass and drums exactly right.
	Jack Montrose:  Blues and Vanilla (RCA/BMG/Fresh Sound) Jack Montrose is one of the great lost virtuosos of West Coast Jazz.  Maybe the album art is why? This is kinda available on Jordi Pujol's Fresh Sound, Spanish BMG series, which means you can maybe find it from Cadence; I found my copy at the Jazz Record Mart in Chicago, plus there were a bunch of the original RCA LPs in the basement.  Why would one bother?  If you miss Gerry Mulligan or Paul Desmond, or Mulligan and Desmond together, chasing each other about, this will be like meeting for the first time somebody who knows all your old friends and has heard all these great stories about you and has always wanted to meet you.  Not that that has ever happened to me.  Anyway, Shelly Manne is here, Red Norvo is here, Max Bennett (who later went on to play on Hot Rats) and Jim Hall are here, all playing chamber jazz, just the way it's supposed to be.  If you like Jimmy Giuffre, or Chico Hamilton,  this music will make you feel good.  Hell, they play Bernie's Tune.  On the title track, there's an alto player named Joe Maini I am not really familiar with; he has a slightly acid tone, and comports himself well. Shorty Rogers maybe just slightly over-supervised the recording.
	Peggy Lee:  Black Coffee (Decca/Verve)  OK, what I know about Peggy Lee is Fever; I picked this up because Jimmy Rowles plays the piano, and it seemed like a good late-night CD.  Which it is.  This is a very intimate recording, tiny little band.  Very small musicians (I hardly notice Rowles, which is maybe the idea).  I find that Lee is trying too hard to be Billie Holliday on the ballads, but she has some real drive on the up-tempo pieces; there is a certain bounce on  I Didn't Know What Time It Was, My Heart Belongs To Daddy and It Ain't Necessarily So that I find very appealing.  I've Got You Under My Skin is nearly a rhumba.  But some of the tracks are so intimate that even Ms. Lee has trouble squeezing in the room; she's nearly whispering on There's A Small Hotel.  Doesn't work for me.  The title track is wonderful; kudos to Pete Candoli for the really smutty trumpet.
	Kenny Barron Quintet:  Images (Sunnyside)  I think Night and the City, Barron's duet album with Charlie Haden, is one of the finest jazz recordings made since WW II, and I loved his work with Sphere, so I am always willing to take a flier on a new Kenny Barron release.  Apparently, he has been dropped from his long-time label, Verve, as it gradually ossifies.  This album features vibes (Stefon Harris) and a flute in the front line.  The playing is elegant and precise, and the recording is pleasant enough, but fails to leave a deep impression.   Possibly it is too arranged, and a little more improvisation and a little less structure would improve the situation.  The flute is a notoriously difficult  instrument to make jazz with.   Maybe the band cooks live.  It reminds me of some of John Lewis' lesser work, dignified, well-crafted, but ultimately not very memorable. It certainly won't discourage me from sampling his next release.
	Bruce Barth:  Live at the Village Vanguard (MaxJazz)  Barth is a competent player, this is a good trio (Ugonna Okegwo and Al Foster), but it's hard to pick out anything memorable.  Barth seems to spend a lot of time just filling in space.  I guess the high point for me is a slightly sinister arrangement of Monk's Let's Call This, which is also the only track Barth didn't arrange.  If I were going to spring for one of these uniformly well-recorded, nicely packaged MaxJazz piano recordings, I would probably pick up one (or two) of the Jessica Williams CDs (see below).
	Jenny Scheinman:  Shalagaster (Tzadik)  I felt that Myra Melford, responsible for Jump and Now & Now, was just about the coolest thing to happen to the piano in the 1980s, but she fell victim to an advanced case of avant garde noodling in the 1990s.  So, I was pleased to hear that she had hooked up with Jenny Scheinman, whose two previous recordings (that I am aware of), The Rabbi's Lover and Live at Yoshi's, demonstrated a sense of drama, a serious willingness to get into a groove, and an ability to sing that compare favorably to Jean Luc Ponty even before he came down with a incurable case of fusion.  Scheinman doesn't have Regina Carter's extraordinary technical ability, but she's no slouch, either, and her records are a lot more fun.  I am pleased to report that I was not disappointed, that Melford lends her serious chops in a meaningful way to 10 1/2 originals that are pulsating, lyrical and just generally pleasing.  Plus, you get to hear jazz played on a harmonium.  Downtown rhythm section Trevor Dunn and Kenny Wollesen give the music some backbone.  The sound is great.  But what is it with that liner photograph?
	Joe Lovano:  I'm All For You (Blue Note)  It's not fair to the other saxophone players to have Hank Jones, George Mraz and Paul Motian on your album.  How can they compete?  Lovano visits the land of ballads, and I doubt that Blue Note twisted his arm to do it.  I was unimpressed by Lovano's late-80's and early-90's work as a leader; although always a fine section player, he didn't seem to me distinctive enough to be the leading man.  Since then, he seems to have found more of a voice, and seems to benefit from concept albums that would strangle other players, although he still strikes me as sort of derivative, the same way Wynton sounds to many people.   Here, Lovano is clearly Coleman Hawkins (including Hawk's work with Monk, check out Monk's Mood).  And a very good Coleman Hawkins he is, too.  Bennie Wallace is also a good Coleman Hawkins.  Maybe there's nothing new to be done on the tenor, and we should just be pleased with these talented men, who can reproduce perfectly the music of long-gone giants.  Lovingly played, beautifully recorded, I feel churlish complaining.  I'm sorry, I didn't mean it...
	Lee Konitz, Brad Mehldau and Charlie Haden:  Alone Together and Another Shade of Blue (Blue Note)  Lee Konitz has spent the last forty years traveling around the world and playing pick-up sessions.  I have seen him do this at the Kerrytown Concert House, and it worked quite well.  However, I do not belong to the religion of jazz-is-pure-improvisation and I think this is not only not necessarily the true path to Jazz Nirvana, but that it is a largely remarkable technique in that it works at all.  Here is evidence that sometimes it doesn't.  Both CDs were recorded from the same two nights in 1997 in L.A., and according to the liner notes, not only had these three guys never played together, they didn't even pick a set list before the concerts; Konitz just called the tunes on stage.  The result is comically awful.  At