A diverse but simpatico mix of American songbook standards, pop hits and group originals

This is Joshua Redman’s “ballads with strings” record, a venerable tradition that most includes such torrid beboppers as Charlie Parker and Clifford Brown. It continues Redman’s recent penchant for putting himself in new settings — his membership in the egalitarian ensemble James Farm and the knotty skronk he’s delivered guesting with The Bad Plus are other examples — but on Walking Shadows he allows himself the security blanket of deploying sidemen. It isn’t easy to come up with three more acutely creative jazz balladeers than the other members of his core quartet — pianist (and album producer) Brad Mehldau, drummer Brian Blade and bassist Larry Grenadier. Their low-key sensitivity is a secret ingredient here.

The material is a diverse but simpatico mix of American songbook standards, pop hits and group originals. Redman plays with gorgeous aplomb on Kern and Hammerstein’s “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” (the latter also features Mehldau’s best solo). He teases out the familiar melodies of The Beatles’ “Let It Be” and “Stop That Train” by John Mayer before taking transformative liberties with them via deft improvisations. The most arresting of the originals is Redman’s atmospheric “Final Hour,” in which his tenor has the low-toned plangency of a bass clarinet.

The presence of the strings — conducted by Dan Coleman, who also arranged them along with Mehldau and Patrick Zimmerli — varies significantly from song to song. Ironically, Bach’s “Adagio,” featuring a sublime Grenadier bass riff, is among the least ornamented offerings, while on the ’30s standard “Easy Living” and the intro to Mehldau’s “Last Glimpse of Gotham,” they’re more integral to the song than Redman’s sax; Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life” is a compelling but messy pastiche. Nothing here is trite or bathetic however — no mean feat for jazz-with-strings endeavors. Walking Shadows is another colorful plume in Redman’s steadily adventurous career.

Scrolling out like a seamless series of surprises

Craig Taborn HAS set a daunting standard with his outings as a leader: 2004′s Junk Magic, for one, is a jazz-electronica masterwork that updated Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew for the 21st century; 2011′s Avenging Angel, for its part has been hailed for expanding the language of solo piano improvisation. Chants doesn’t detract from the luster of that legacy. Drummer Gerald Cleaver (who has known Taborn for 25 years) and bassist Thomas Morgan have been playing the vast majority of these nine Taborn originals for years now, and the resultant music scrolls out like a seamless series of surprises, with interplay that is earthy and organic, yet whirring with intimate, nuanced colors, like a pastel kaleidoscope.

Sometimes the innovations are spun off from a repetitive riff, as on “Beat the Ground.” Sometimes they roam into a journey, as on the 13-minute “All True Night/Future Perfect,” which begins with a classically-oriented piano solo and concludes with roguish intensity. Sometimes they coalesce, as in the gorgeous bass-and-drums engagement during the quiet “In Chant.” They can feel “avant-garde,” as during the delicate sonic crumpling of “Cracking Hearts,” or bold and insistent, as in the rousing closer, “Speak the Name.” This is not your grandfather’s piano trio; this is a shape-shifting music that snuggles into nooks and crannies of its own making.

Passion and reverence that soaks into your soul

Jaimeo Brown’s Transcendence is “essential” music, in the sense that the essence of the black church, the blues and the emotional gutbucket that marks the best jazz improvisation help distinguish its identity. And yet this is almost the opposite of a “roots” album; Brown, a drummer-conceptualist in his mid 30s, has fostered a species of music that incorporates the scalding blues-rock guitar and hip-hop sonics of Chris Sholar (probably best known for his Grammy-winning work with Kanye and Jay-Z on “No Church In the Wild”); extended samples from the rural Alabama gospel group the Gee’s Bend Quilters from their recordings in 1941 and 2002; the sinuous, Carnatic-styled East Indian vocals of Falu; the resonant, ductile jazz tenor sax of J.D. Allen and piano of Geri Allen; and Brown’s own polyrhythmic, African-bush-to-NYC-club assaults on the drum kit.

After a couple of straight-through listens, the entire package soaks into your soul. The terrifying, god-fearing declamations of the Gee Bend vocalists on traditional spirituals anchor the opener, “Mean World” and “You Can’t Hide.” The former finds drummer Brown and saxophonist Allen enacting the blitzkrieg of woe that befalls the wretched, yielding to a soundscape designed by Brown and his father, Dartanyan Brown, that wafts like dust and fog over a desolate plain at the end. On “You Can’t Hide,” Sholar’s guitar electrocutes and illuminates the Holy Ghost, followed by another caldron of phrases from J.D. Allen.

But the passion and reverence unfurls at differently evocative levels of intensity. “Somebody’s Knocking” features the parallel ululations of Falu’s voice and Andrew Shantz’s harmonium. “Patience” leads with the well-deep bass of Dartanyan Brown. “Power of God,” my for-now favorite track, lowers the volume on the gospel singers so that Geri Allen’s incredibly beautiful, understated piano can take hold, resulting in a softly shimmering tune. “Accra” is a drum showcase for Brown inspired by his trip to Ghana a week for the recording session. Transcendence concludes with another pair of spirituals, “You Needn’t Mind Me Dying” and “This World Ain’t My Home,” that mesh raging gospel and gauzy hip hop dappled with the rubato jazz of Allen’s horn. It will find a place on my best-of listings at year’s end.

Dynamic arrangements that spit and sizzle

Sean Nowell has firmly established his credentials as a stolid post-bop saxophonist with a string of discs stretching back to 2006, but he opens The Kung-Fu Masters by covering Jimi Hendrix (a resplendent rendition of the sinuous classic, “Crosstown Traffic”) and devotes the liner notes to a single quote from martial artist Bruce Lee that begins, “There are no limits.” The adjoining photo of Nowell — left leg and hand poised for a karate kick and chop, right hand cradling his tenor sax, sunglasses on, neck muscles tensed, mouth yelling — undercuts his industrial-strength alter ego just a smidge with good humor, and so does the music. The Kung-Fu Masters is named after a septet Nowell has led since 2009, long enough to flex an impressively muscular mix of jazz, funk, rock and electronic, leavened with an appealing dab of carefree fun.

The Hendrix and Bruce Lee references help program the wayback machine to the ’60s and ’70s. Sure, there are some blipping riffs and pronounced effects, especially from Nowell’s longtime cohort (and Posi-Tone label mate), keyboardist Art Hirahara. But the bulk of the tracks on Kung Fu feature three-part horn arrangements (with ace bop trombonist Michael Dease and trumpeter Brad Mason joining Nowell) that are taut like a traveling blues revue or, more often, greasy and groove-oriented like the Crusaders, Bohannon, or the JBs. Throw in Adam Klipple’s fatback organ and the powerhouse funk-rock rhythm section (drummer Marko Djordjevic and bassist Evan Marien) and you’ve got music that spits and sizzles on the grill.

The talented, practiced band and Nowell’s dynamic arrangements rescue The Kung-Fu Masters from retro cliché. Check the way all seven members are deployed on the snaky funk, replete with a four-note vamp played rondo style, on “In the Shikshteesh,” the Shaft-on-the-Autobahn dislocation of “The Outside World,” the slingshot-groove skirmishing between the horns and the keys on “The 55th Chamber,” and the porridge of textures that comprise “Uncrumpable.” On The Kung-Fu Masters, Sean Nowell gets back to his bad self.

Welcoming the association with the Modern Jazz Quartet

Any ensemble fronted by piano and vibes is going to garner comparisons to the Modern Jazz Quartet, but by his biography, his compositions and arrangements, his song choices and his approach to music, it is apparent that Aaron Diehl welcomes the association. Two years after touring with Wynton Marsalis, and while still a teenager at Juilliard, Diehl spent six months helping the widow of MJQ pianist and musical director John Lewis archive her late husband’s scores, tapes and manuscripts. Diehl’s cerebral, conservative yet thorough command of Euro-classically tinged jazz precociously harkens to Lewis’s conceptual depth, and in vibraphonist Warren Wolf, he has a foil with a quicksilver elegance akin to Lewis’s MJQ partner Milt Jackson.

Citing Lewis and Duke Ellington, Diehl says he wanted to write and arrange songs that showcase his longtime quartet. (Wolf and bassist David Wong have been with Diehl for nearly five years and drummer Rodney Green for more than two.) The Bespoke Man’s Narrative opens with three originals: the suave “Prologue” (repeated as the closing bookend, “Epilogue”), the fleet, cavorting “Generation Y” (a wonderful vehicle for Wolf’s flying mallets), and the hushed, contemplative “Blue Nude.” Then a trio of covers improves on this auspicious beginning. “Moonlight in Vermont” unfurls with an effortless glide that reminds us how enjoyable hoary standards can be when invested with enough love and scholarship. Diehl’s near-solo piano rendition of Ellington’s “Single Petal of a Rose” plumbs for all the melancholy beauty stored in the tune, enriched and amplified by Diehl’s boyhood stint playing services in his father’s funeral parlor. And the entire quartet nails the delightfully airy agility of Milt Jackson’s “The Cylinder.”

Diehl’s “Stop and Go,” brims with clever time changes, highlighted by Diehl’s hammering right hand and Green’s efficient and exquisite drum solo on brushes. An ambitious 11 minutes of Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” includes another notable Green solo and Diehl’s brittle, almost harpsichord-ish piano tone. And Gershwin’s “Bess, You Is My Woman Now,” like the Ellington cover, respects the original to the point of reverence yet still triumphs, this time on the basis of Wong’s beautifully bowed work, Green’s brushes and Diehl’s twinkling passages.

Ryan Keberle and Catharsis, Music Is Emotion

Ryan Keberle’s third album as a leader is not as different from the first two as he might imagine — and that’s a good thing. The son and grandson of professional musicians, Keberle studied at the Manhattan School of Music and graduated from Juilliard, has a prime seat in some of the most adventurous big bands today, including those led by Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue, and teaches at Hunter College. So it is hard not to hear a little defensiveness when he writes in the liner notes, “This record is about music from the heart and the soul and not from the brain.”

Keberle probably underestimates the wonderful emotional transparency of his striking compositions and arrangements on his first two discs, especially the second one, Heavy Dreaming. But where those records featured a “double quartet” instrumentation of Keberle’s trombone with rhythm section abetted by four other brass players, Music Is Emotion scales it back to a piano-less quartet, with trumpeter Mike Rodriguez joining him on the front line. The fewer musicians creates greater intimacy, and more chances and space for each member of the ensemble (named Catharsis), to express himself.

Thus, the interplays and calls-and-responses are more individual or duo on Emotion than on denser, earlier discs. It starts right away with “Big Kick Blues,” where bassist Jorge Roeder sets the pulse and the horns follow; later, Keberle and Rodriguez take turns being the refractory moon off each other’s sun — and the blues is served with heart, brain and soul.

For the third straight disc, Keberle pays tribute to the Beatles with a cover song, this one “Julia,” which rolls out a moving horn treatment and then let Roeder go off on a solo. This happens on a majority of the ten songs — the bassist is pervasively in the spotlight and delivers his personality without disrupting the emotional or structural texture of the tune. Other covers include Billy Strayhorn (“Blues In Orbit”) and Art Farmer (“Bluesport”) both with guest saxophonist Scott Robinson, enabling Keberle to bring back the “little big band” feel that is a virtue of his writing. And check out “Carbon Neutral” which open with two minutes of the irrepressible Roeder on arco. In sum, then, another smart, but heartfelt Ryan Keberle outing — hope he gives himself an emotional pat on the back.

Open-ended but purposeful, alert yet accepting

Seven months away from his 80th birthday, the greatest living composer in jazz has released his first record in eight years. Wayne Shorter’s Without A Net features eight live songs from a 2011 European tour with his longstanding quartet, along with a more recent 23-minute, chamber-styled tone poem, also live, with the five-piece Imani Winds abetting the regular ensemble.

It is an event of a record, Shorter’s first for the Blue Note label in 43 years. But Without A Net is distant from such Blue Note classics as Juju and Speak No Evil in more ways than one. His preferred saxophone is now the soprano instead of the tenor, and nearly a half-century after his Blue Note albums stunned listeners with their buffed, lean, hard-bop ingenuity, Without A Net is open-ended but purposeful, alert yet accepting. It reflects the tranquil whir animating Shorter today,an elderly master of musical composition and a longtime follower of the Buddhist faith.

Without A Net contains all the Shorter verities — the harmonic sophistication, the patient song construction, the innovative probing of melodic nooks and crannies, the geometric integrity of his solos. Perhaps because Shorter isn’t fully absorbed in a few listens, I’m most favorably inclined toward his reworking of two older tunes. Without losing its circular motif, “Orbits” is more allusive than the snappy bop version opening Miles Davis’s Miles Smiles in 1967 and the string-laden remake on Shorter’s Alegria in 2003. And “Plaza Real” sheds the overtly Spanish tinge from its original with Weather Report in 1983, transforming into a series of refractions between Shorter’s soprano and his three cohorts that reveals quite a bit about his modern-day conceptions on the straight horn.

Of the originals, “Starry Night” is indebted to the Latin, classical and beautifully elliptical jazz phrasings of pianist Danilo Perez. “S.S. Golden Mean” is a relatively playful number that finds Shorter’s quoting “Night In Tunesia,” and “Zero Gravity” begins as a toe-tapper with Shorter whistling over John Pattituci’s sturdy bass riff before slides into the sort of levitating interplay implied by the album’s title. There is also a 13-minute rendition of the theme song to the movie “Flying Down To Rio,” the first pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, released in 1933 — the year of Shorter’s birth. It seems this wizened old dog always has a few tricks left in his arsenal, and can operate “without a net” because, at this late stage, he will almost assuredly land gracefully.

An evocative musical geography tour

Southern Exposure is an evocative musical geography tour writ in bold strokes, precise plucks and sublime squeezebox embraces. At the helm of this travelogue is violinist Christian Howes, a classical music prodigy who landed in jail for years as a teenager for selling drugs. Howes is renowned as a genre-busting whirlwind who has credibly covered Jimi Hendrix and handles concertos, bluegrass jams and jazz improvisation with equal facility. His frenetic energy is beautifully restrained here by the theme of the disc — music from throughout the Southern Hemisphere — and by his co-pilot, the French accordionist and Astor Piazzolla protégé, Richard Galliano.

But as the music and the liner notes make abundantly clear, this is no winsome stab at Parisian café music. The first track, “Ta Boa, Santa?” by Brazilian Egberto Gismonti, bounces from jazz shuffle to barn dance to a prancing lilt and on through a spirited bass and drum exchange between Scott Colley and Lewis Nash before Galliano takes an accordion twirl — and we’re halfway through the song. That’s followed with a bittersweet samba by Ivan Lins, Piazzola’s classic “Oblivion,” and into the hard bop of Ray Bryant’s “Cubano Chant,” a staple of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Howes and Galliano each contribute a tango, and there is a compelling duet between them, entitled “Spleen” before the group closes out with a string-laden arrangement of a Howes original.

The secret ingredient of Southern Exposure is the rhythm section. Colley and Nash merit their reputations as top-notch timekeepers who can flex but never really stray from jazz. They are joined by the less-heralded but on this date sterling pianist Josh Nelson, and they collectively keep the two almost congenitally romantic lead instruments from lapsing into too many swoops and swoons. This is sunny but alert music that skirts banality even as it twirls and sashays forth from style to style and culture to culture. Or, put more simply, Southern Exposure is plenty warm enough, but not too cuddly.

A complex musical impression of The Odyssey

Chris Potter, a titanic saxophonist still searching for the ceiling of his prime, has engaged in magnificent horn-blowing showcases (try Lift: Live at the Village Vanguard) and been a member of some memorably strong and cohesive ensembles (with Dave Holland, Dave Douglas, in trio with Paul Motian and Jason Moran, and most recently with Pat Metheny). But Potter has never relied on his compositions with the thematic rigor and imagination displayed on The Sirens, his ECM debut and 19th disc as a leader overall.

The Sirens was conceived in a burst of creativity that mirrors the fluid complexity of Potter’s solos. He had just re-read Homer’s ancient classic, The Odyssey, and erupted with eight songs, all related to his impressions of the epic poem, within a two-week period. He assembled an enormously talented quintet who could exercise rugged discipline and free-wheeling spontaneity. Suffice to say, his bandmates give the compositions full justice.

A key choice was enlisting Eric Harland on drums — a dynamic time-keeper well-suited for grandeur, who proves here, as he does in Charles Lloyd’s quartet, that his carpet-bombing style raises the intensity without driving the band into a frenzy. There are a pair of keyboardists, first among them Potter’s longtime cohort Craig Taborn, who can expertly preserve the natural shape of a fragile ballad like “Dawn (With Her Rosy Fingers), capably ride astride the odd-metered canter of “Kalypso,” and engage Potter’s robust tenor solo with classic jolt of chordal thunder and single-note passages. The other keyboardist is David Virelles on prepared piano, harmonium and celeste, on board primarily for minor but crucial twinkling (and a wonderfully busy interaction with Taborn on “Wayfinder”).

Potter the composer is lucky to have Potter the reedman at his disposal. When his tenor solos stretch the moody opener, “Wine Dark Sea,” near the breaking point, you revel in his well-established gifts. But when his bass clarinet marinates with the bowed bass of Larry Grenadier on the title track, you realize Potter is stretching his compositions too. I particularly enjoy the side tributes to two of his saxophone heroes. “Penelope” is a voluptuous ballad that strays into blues, reminiscent of Wayne Shorter’s composition of the same name, and Potter plays it on soprano, an instrument long associated with Shorter. On the next track, “Kalypso,” Potter gambols on tenor with a modified calypso that veers in and out of avant garde territory but still recalls the scintillating calypsos of Sonny Rollins. There is a delicious confluence at play here: Penelope is the mother of Odysseus, while Kalypso keeping Odysseus hostage on an island for seven years. The same sort of resonant, overlapping details are brimming through the music of The Sirens.

A seemingly effortless and erudite musical conversation

Whether he is providing the lone accompaniment to idiosyncratic vocalist Sheila Jordan or engaging the urbane artistry of a consummate pro like pianist Kenny Barron, acoustic bassist Harvie S demonstrates the talent and temperament of a sublime duo partner. Witchcraft is a sequel to a duet session between Harvie and Barron recorded back in 1986 but literally lost among tapes in the basement and only released in 2008 under the ironic title Now Was The Time. It was like buried treasure, and such a seemingly effortless and erudite musical conversation that the pair convened again, 26 years after that original date. These ten tracks show them to be just as compatible but all the wiser for the time elapsed time.

Harvie immediately showcases the equality of their interplay by carrying the melody on the opening number, “Autumn Nocturne.” On other tunes, such as “For Heaven’s Sake,” Barron is inescapably the focus of attention. But most tracks find the pair intertwined a fine weave of ideas. On the beguiling samba, “Rio,” they state the theme in unison like a pair of horn players. Stevie Wonder’s “Creepin’” is clearly a chance for Harvie to showcase his fast fingers, while Deodato’s obscure “Juan’s Theme,” from the 2000 movie Bossa Nova, may be the highlight of the disc, as Barron spools out beautiful lines that are then gloriously ornamented by Harvie’s extended bow work. The three-song finale includes Harvie’s wistful original ballad, “Until Tomorrow,” a very Monkish take on Duke Ellington’s “Wig Wise,” and then Cy Coleman’s title track, which Barron takes at a serene, victory-lap tempo.

“Background music” is usually an epithet, especially when the intelligence and technical facility are as high as they are on Witchcraft. But this does indeed enrich your existence as a secondary focus, much like a plush Oriental rug or a striking painting. Pay attention and it will give up its many secrets. But let it play as you make dinner or converse over wine and your ambiance will be more golden than silence.

Adding some shine to Miles Davis's funky-fusion jazz formula

Trumpeter-composer Jeremy Pelt has been trying for years now to add some 21st-century shine to the godhead funky-fusion jazz formula minted by Miles Davis on Bitches Brew. Portions of Water and Earth demonstrate brilliant progress in that quest.

“Boom Bishop,” track four, is the pole star. After 45-seconds of palette-cleansing razz-a-ma-tazz goes quiet, David Bryant’s throbbing Fender Rhodes wafts up, Burniss Earl Travis plies the electric bass, and drummer Dana Hawkins starts laying down ground fire that would do Miles’s prodigious time-keeper Tony Williams proud. Roxy Coss is by turns elliptical and angular in her tenor solo, and then, more than three minutes in, Pelt arrives. His trumpet, altered by electronic effects, escalates in intensity, hits a wah-wah fever of modulation, and then exits with some Miles-ian tonal Nerf balls.

There are other strong tunes in this vein, such as “Prior Convictions,” which features Frank LoCrasto on Fender and Prophet keyboards while Bryant moves over to a Hammond B-3 organ. A “Dreams”-themed triptych includes the gossamer march-funk of “In Dreams,” and a compelling blend of neo-bop and Bitches fusion named “Pieces of a Dream.” The ballad “Butterfly Dreams” is a starburst closer that Pelt bends beautifully with the persistent patience of a woodworker.

Five years ago, Pelt released a live album with his electric group Wired entitled Shock Value because the bop purists who correctly regard the trumpeter as a superb bop stylist were shocked he’d take up fusion so blatantly. After that, Pelt assembled one of the deeper, creatively synergistic neo-bop quintets of the past decade, for a stirring, highly-praised four-album run. Now he’s back to plugging in, delivering better shocks than he did before. He’s still in his 30s, and a high-powered future awaits.

Nestling against the contours of your imagination

Guitarist Bill Frisell has collaborated with dozens of musicians, but nobody seems to match his simultaneously vigilant and easygoing sensibility as profoundly as trumpeter-composer Ron Miles. A decade after their gently captivating duets on Heaven, this trio sequel, with the inspired complement of Brian Blade on drums, nestles against the contours of your imagination the way handsewn moccasins coddle your feet — with a cozy, utilitarian simplicity.

It’s hard to overstate the intimacy of the interplay between trumpet and guitar here. It creates the assumption that Miles and Frisell share similar senses of humor, pathos and justice, and that they move through life at the same pace, with a particular appreciation for patience and modesty. Blade — whose long stint in a quartet led by the capacious intellect of Wayne Shorter has honed his skill at punctuation perhaps better than any current drummer — signals and shades the pauses and endings of the trio’s interplay in a manner that heightens their emphasis and purpose, a crucial role when the stylists are as subtle as Miles and Frisell can be.

As with Heaven, Miles bookends the song list with originals, and places his revamped covers of vintage tunes in the middle. “Queen B” might be the quintessential Ron Miles song — a tender yet tensile mixture of Americana and jazz that is resolutely restrained and yet utterly compelling for its entire 6:25. The trio takes “There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth the Salt of My Tears,” which was played for jaunty goofs in the flapper era of the 1920s, and injects its swing with some morphine blues and lamentation. Duke Ellington’s similarly caffeinated 1920′s track, “Doin’ The Vroom Vroom,” is slowed differently, with wind beneath its sails that billows the melody. In between them is a Miles original, “Just Married,” that has the catchy innocence of an updated pop tune from a bygone period. The cheap way to evoke all of this, especially for a guitarist and a trumpeter, is with twang and blare. But the trio trust that the musical arrows in their quiver will be more exacting and penetrating than that. And their aim is true.

His words and music keep burning

Given that Gil Scott-Heron is regularly referred to as the godfather of rap and this three-disc collection covers the raw, early stages of his career — recorded before Kool Herc and later Grandmaster Flash minted the touchstones of a nascent hip-hop culture — the temptation will be to highlight the historical importance of The Revolution Begins and discount its stand-alone value as musical commentary. But these tracks have always been destined to provide a visceral, socio-political jolt rather than become some academic shelf-filler.

For better or worse, the songs are organized in a non-chronological manner that discourages a straight historical overview anyway. Disc one corrals all the primary Flying Dutchman label collaborations between GSH and his former college classmate and most effective and empathetic musical partner, Brian Jackson. It includes the most polished rendition of “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (often cited as the first real forebear of rap), the buoyant elixir that celebrates “Lady Day and John Coltrane,” and poignant, bitter ballads leavened by a soulful sweetness, such as “Home Is Where The Hatred Is,” “Pieces of a Man” and the woefully underrated vocal gem, “Did You Hear What They Said?” Jackson’s accompaniment on keys and flute is near-universally superb.

Disc two is almost entirely comprised of Scott-Heron’s early spoken-word performances. Many are prefaced by contextual explanations and describes as poems, which are then set to barebones beats and music. While the cadences are catchy, the delivery is raw and the emotions more-so. Some have been diminished by time — the bigotry of “The Subject Was Faggots” is as anachronistic as his calling out Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell on “No Knock”—but the racially infused fury of “Enough” and “Comment#1″ and the black-on-black truth-telling of “Billie Green Is Dead” and “The Get Out of the Ghetto Blues” is as riveting as it is incendiary.

Disc three contains alternate takes of varying quality, but, once again, should not be regarded as mere fodder for the Scott-Heron completists. This is an artist who consistently strove — perhaps especially so in these early years — to get up-close and personal by wearing his heart and soul on his sleeve, alternately lacquered with bile, balm and tears. It is sadly ironic that a recurrent theme in his Flying Dutchman material concerns the scourge of drug addiction and why black Americans are especially prone to fall prey to it out of despair. Dead at 62 in May of 2011, the haunting lament of “Home Is Where The Hatred Is,” and a half-dozen other songs here, can easily stand in as prescient eulogies. The artist is gone, but his words and music keep burning.

The net effect is greater than the sum of their parts

Union Square is like that shy, cute guy or girl who was easy to overlook in class or at the office, until a chance extended encounter revealed them to be smart, incisive and charmingly modest. All three members of this trio are well established in the jazz firmament and typically push their projects into a higher profile. But here they embark on 10 collaborative originals with no guest stars, studio effects or attendant hype. Their music unfurling patiently with assured aplomb, so that the net effect is greater than the sum of their parts — both within each tune and in the overall collection.

My favorite tracks are the two in the middle. On “Big Smile,” Blake’s soprano sax is tonally and texturally contrasted with Royston’s tom-tom beats, with Allison’s bass neatly wedged in. “Wig Wise” opens with glazed, metronomic cymbals from Royston, Allison’s adds to the toe-tapping groove and Blake, again on soprano, gradually ups the intensity. Elsewhere, “Flapper” has got a little of the madcap, Roaring ’20s in its agile interplay, “Compassion” is, not surprisingly, the most plaintive and vulnerable tune on the disc, and the closing “Freedom From Exile” has what sounds like a low-drone bass clarinet from Blake (though it could be Allison on arco) resolving into a defiant breakthrough. But there is something to recommend on every track.

The scant press materials take pains to point out that Union Square is also a locus of political activity for Occupy Wall Street and the gay rights movement in New York. This recording avoids slogans and heavy postures, but performs enough good musical deeds to prove its heart is in the right place.

An apt title for music with this many angles and ideas

It’s almost a shame Eric Revis is still best known as the longstanding bassist for the Branford Marsalis Quartet, because his own projects have been consistently meaty, masterful and stylistically multi-faceted. Parallax — his third disc as a leader, not counting the trio Tarbaby — is a bold, star-infused quartet date that deserves to be heard above all the year-end list-making hoopla surrounding its release.

Revis emerges as the guiding force among such dominant sidemen as pianist Jason Moran, Ken Vandermark on tenor and clarinet, and Nasheet Waits in the drummer’s chair. He stakes out the terrain with showcases that include a modulated blizzard of notes from his bow on the 80-second solo opener, “Prelusion”; agile plucking on the 102-second mid-disc solo, “Percival”; and the closing title track, an ominous and deliberate texture-contrast duet with Vandermark.

Revis challenges his supergroup in unique fashion by structuring “Celestial Hobo” around the individual musical reaction of each band member to a poem by Bob Kaufman. He and Waits build funhouse mirrors out of crazy-glue in their intrepid intros to two standards, raking and scratching for beats on Fats Waller’s “I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter,” and lurching about like mimes pretending inebriation on Jelly Roll Morton’s “Winin’ Boy Blues.” And among Revis’s group compositions, “Edgar,” sports a marvelous stalk-swing groove that is by turns spooky and whimsical.

The sidemen deploy their enormous talents with bristling elegance, mixing brutish abandon with expertly honed restraint, so that the customary patterns of ensemble interplay are elevated and/or altered by extraordinary innovation. You hear it in the way Vandermark refuses to climax the tension of his high-wire clarinet solo on “MXR,” the way Waits swings the centrifugal force out to the periphery on the Waller tune, the two-handed gusto that Moran uses to both goad and waylay the groove on “IV,” and the distinct unison harmonies Moran and Vandermark wring out of their front-line tandem on many of the tracks. The two group improvisations are among the best of their kind that I’ve heard in recent years. “IV” is hard-bop rampaging through thorny rose bushes. “Hyperthral” lives up to its title, gradually escalating into shred-fest while Revis’s bass holds the ground with the ever-presence of an afternoon shadow. A “parallax” describes the displacement of an object viewed along two different lines of sight — an apt title for music with this many angles and ideas.

Hard bop brandished with innovative aggression

Afro Straight demonstrates once more the rousing creativity that can ensue when a supposed “outside” player tears into some standards. Saxophonist Ernest Dawkins is a past president of the AACM and a torch-bearing purveyor of the sort of musical-cultural-political intersections that make Chicago such admirably rugged jazz terrain. Dawkins is already renowned for blending hard bop with more experimental, “avant-garde” jazz concepts, and this is his first disc mostly devoted to standards, with three tunes apiece from John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter along with two older chestnuts and a couple of minor originals filling out the program.

It cooks with a ferocity that warms the soul. Dawkins retains the rhythm section from his New Horizons Ensemble and adds pianist Willerm Delisfort and a trio of percussionists for a pervasive Latin flavor. But his masterstroke is recruiting fellow Chicago dynamo Corey Wilkes on trumpet, whose celebratory, clarion strut on “United” (written by Shorter for Blakey’s Jazz Messengers) is reminiscent of vintage-’90s Nicholas Payton. Like Dawkins, Wilkes has an affinity for sonic brambles, and it is a treat to hear them flirt with freedom and dissonance while never really losing fidelity to these classic compositions. The two-horn head arrangement on Dizzy Gillespie’s “Woody n’ You” yields to a succinct and spirited Wilkes solo on mute, soon followed by a rendition of the standard “Softly As In A Morning Sunrise,” that gives us Coltrane’s ominous, piano-laden opening, a little wayward murmuring among the horns and then an inspired workout on the familiar melody.

These are less successful moments. Recruiting a B-3 organist for “God Bless the Child” imprisons it in gospel cliché, and the two Dawkins numbers – a 94-second percussion romp on the title track and a takes-your-time amble entitled “Old Man Blues” – pale beside the thoroughgoing creative standard set by the other material. But if you like your hard bop brandished with innovative aggression, the rest of Afro Straight has your number(s).

Putting Pythagoras to music

First off, the band is phenomenal and deserves its own roll call. On bass, Christian McBride. The drummer? Jeff ‘Tain Watts. You simply can’t concoct a more august and authoritative rhythm section. Alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon (winner of a MacArthur “genius grant”), pianist Luis Perdomo and vocalist Claudia Acuna are three of the brightest stars in Latin jazz. French percussionist Mino Cinelu and composer-guitarist Gilmore (not to be confused with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour) round out a truly extraordinary septet.

And they need to be, because Gilmore is throwing some heavy charts at them. An associate professor at the Berklee College of Music, his ambitious agenda for Numerology is to delve into the theories of Pythagoras, who believed that numbers and their vibrations can unlock the cycles of life and learning. Put into practice, it yields music for polymaths, brimming with asymmetrical rhythms. New York Times reviewer Nate Chinen, who caught the live shows that comprise Numerology, counted out a knotty 21/8 time signature in “Seven: (Rest).”

To these less-learned but jazz-loving ears, it doesn’t feel that complicated. The shifting rhythms occasionally produce a feeling musically akin to walking on a trampoline. But the commanding talent on hand ensures that the grooves hold sway, the solos are frequently stupendous, and a context is established that allows you to appreciate the grand arc of Gilmore’s conception – the seven tracks actually fall into two movements of four and then three songs – instead of having to snatch up favorable bits.

The result is a fascinating mélange that roams from lilting chamber harmonies to blistering fusion jazz, with Afro-Cuban rhythms, bebop and prog-rock sifted in. Zenon and Gilmore are the primary soloists, and Zenon’s scalded alto jams are a consistent highlight, as they simultaneous up the intensity and concentrate the flow. Gilmore plays like a blend of John Scofield and Carlos Santana, and Acuna’s wordless vocals add a subtle but resonantly human touch to the harmonies. McBride, Watts and the underrated Perdomo alternately lock down and dexterously open the rhythms. Pythagoras would rate this five triangles.

Irabagon kicked off his own Irabbagast Records label with two releases – the collaboration with Barr (and drummer Mike Pride) and the stylistically-sprawling second effort from his band Outright!

eMusic’s Britt Robson caught up with Irabagon at his home in New York in October.

Your taste and activity in music is so broad, I’m wondering what you listened to growing up. Did you have any swoons over bands during your formative years?

It’s funny, my parents would go through different phases of popular music at the time. They’d pick one radio station for a couple months, then switch to another. When I was really young, there was this easy-listening phase, this elevator music. When I was playing video games, I remember they switched over to oldies and then country. I remember listening for some songs that had sax on them – especially on the oldies station. I think it eventually comes down to family and how supportive they are. My parents were very encouraging, and some of my aunts and uncles played music.

And it helps to have friends who like music. I’d go to someone’s house in the early ’90s and listen to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but another friend was into NWA, and of course everyone heard Michael Jackson. Later I was with people who were organizing jazz ensembles. I didn’t come to jazz until I was in high school. Then I had a great jazz band instructor who told me, “If you play sax, check out Cannonball Adderley.”

Then it became a snowball. Listening to Cannonball took me to Charlie Parker and then in college it took me to Steve Coleman, which took me to Anthony Braxton. I read that Braxton likes the guys in AACM, so I started listening to them, which took me to Evan Parker. It all snowballs. If you’re listening to Coltrane, someone will tell you about Rollins and that leads you to Wayne Shorter. Meanwhile friends listening to a bunch of other music say, “You have to check this out,” and that leads to snowballs in a different direction, and it keeps growing.

What is your attitude toward people making distinctions about the way genres or types of music should be defined?

It is interesting to me, because of this whole discussion about jazz as Black American music, and what is or isn’t jazz. There are very smart and opinionated people who think those kinds of things have implications. I can respect that and see where they’re coming from, and I’m not trying to subvert things – I just get way into different types of music. My love of Cannonball Adderley is just as sincere as my love for the Brazilian music of Caetano Veloso that I discovered when I was in this Brazilian band from South Harlem. They had all these complicated chord changes, not just from Veloso but from [Antonio Carlos] Jobim. The best way for me to learn was to listen and transcribe all these Caetano Veloso tunes the way I listened and transcribed the Cannonball tunes. So for me it is not about genres, it is about putting in the time with the music and discovering that you love it.

What about those wild improvisational records you title I Don’t Hear Nothing But The Blues, which mix metal, punk, jazz, blues and noise?

That’s a different thing. That’s a result of [drummer] Mike [Pride] and I being good friends and getting together every Wednesday night just to play and improvise. At first there were bass guitarists, but they kept bailing and after a while it was just the two of us. Then when he was about to go on tour, we figured we should try to record. We tried a couple of things and finally came up with this long-form improvisation. It wasn’t influenced by Interstellar Space, it was more [us] seeing what would happen if we stuck with one motif for one continuous 40- to 50-minute piece.

For the second volume, Mike had known Mick Barr for a long time but I didn’t. Then Hank Shteamer gave our album a really glowing review in Time Out New York, and said it reminded him of Orthelm. So I got the Orthelm album and I could really see what he was talking about, except there was more power from this metal guitarist. I had to find out who this guy was. It so happens that the next year at the Moers Festival in Germany, I was playing with [drummer] Barry Altschul on the material from our Foxy album and on the schedule it showed that Orthelm was playing right after us on the same day on the same stage. We got to meet Mick and he was a really great guy.

Mike and I had a gig at the Stone down on the Lower East Side and so we invited Mick to play. After the first record came out, the original idea was to add a new person each time to this long-form improvisation thing, and we knew immediately that Mick was the correct person to add.

That is a wild and woolly disc. How much prior planning goes into something that extensive and yet seemingly spontaneous?

There is no [set] material to start. The idea is to play continuously, but not throw any notes away, and hopefully reuse and develop the motifs from the first couple of minutes.

Do you worry about playing over each other?

Ideally you’d be able to hear everybody equally. The thing about improvising with these guys is they are very mobile. We can be really locked in and then, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not, one or the other of us goes our own way. I love the openness, the way we lock in and shift and come together, all the while staying with the same [motifs].

You play so many different kinds of music but are you ever concerned that you become a dilettante that way – “jack of all trades, master of none” – and you’ll miss the reward of really absorbing something?

I’m sure everybody’s answer is different, but I just like playing music. I started playing jazz not to be complicated – it has never been about the intellectual reward – but just as another kind of music I love. Music is very special to me, and any honest outcroppings of that come from just trying to play all of it. I’ve been in some great situations, playing with musicians from different fields and genres who are in the highest degree of what they do.

You won the Thelonious Monk award, a very prestigious honor in straight jazz circles, which led to a recording gig of your choice. You selected the entire three-person rhythm section from Stan Getz’s later band to play with on the record. That’s very mainstream but also pretty deep.

Yeah, I checked out a lot of Stan Getz and had all these records and this was a chance to work with those guys as a unit. I’m really glad I did it.

Music is something I am going to be pursuing my entire life; it is my calling, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. So I have until I’m 80 or 90 to follow whatever I am feeling. It is my blessing or my curse that I am into all these things, but I do think I’m doing deep study with them. I would rather go into something because I am into it, not to make other people happy. Besides, there are different parameters for different groups. Like, in Mostly Other People Do The Killing, pretty much anything goes, but it is not that way at all with the Hot Club of Detroit. I’m not going to try and sabotage a band unless they want to be sabotaged. Mostly Other People Do The Killing has that attitude [of being open to sabotage] and I’ve been with them eight or nine years now. It has changed my playing but more importantly [changed] the way I think about music.

But I am also torn. It is like being a double agent, because to be honest, I like the mobility. I want to do my thing, but right now my thing is being inclusive with all these different kinds of people. I mean, playing with Dave [Douglas] and his band for just a limited time, I’ve already learned new things.

Which brings us to Outright!, the band which seems emblematic of your playing because it is all over the map with different styles and guest stars. Your second Outright! record is the other release you are putting out on your own label this week.

Outright! was my first project as a leader five or six years ago. I wanted to improvise on a lot of different things with different musicians, to mix it up from that mass umbrella.

You dedicated the new Outright! followup to the artist Gerhard Richter, and I’m thinking that his overpainted photographs do visually what you do musically.

That is my favorite period of Richter, these photographs that you can see something right away but you keep looking at it and it is more than you thought.

You even mix up your instruments. On the first Outright! record you played alto saxophone. On the new one, tenor.

They are totally different animals. The alto is kind of my girlfriend – we go out on dates – where my tenor is my buddy and I can be a little rougher with it. They are different voices and ideally I approach them differently. One of the original ideas with Outright! was to make a trilogy with alto, then tenor then soprano.

Why did you start your own record label?

I sent the first Outright! record to about 40 different labels. First, you have to send emails to find those labels, then craft emails [introducing yourself], then wait for a response and respond to their questions, then put together a [demo] CD and send it out in a package with a press release and wait to hear back from them.

It’s like you are already doing the work of having your own label.

Exactly. And with the internet, it is not necessary to go through all of that. Outright! is too scattered for some people, so it doesn’t have mass appeal and that is definitely true of the I Don’t Hear Nothing But The Blues records. But they are honest efforts that need to come out. Plus I’ve learned a lot from doing it from the business side.

Will you keep having your own label then?

Probably, because for me a record is a document. It is important to release a record when you’ve reached a certain point in what you are doing. I don’t know if I’ll ever have that mindset again, and I’ll keep changing my playing. So a record is a document of that period and that growth.

Creating art while having a blast

On Joe Fiedler’s Big Sackbut, the titular trombonist-composer manages the too-rare feat of creating art while having a blast, whipping up song arrangements for his quartet of three trombonists and a tuba that are variously punchy, poignant and peculiar. Although the all-horn ensemble can’t help but conjure comparisons to the World Saxophone Quartet, the brass-heavy groups led by Lester Bowie and Dave Douglas, and the entire New Orleans brass-band tradition, Fiedler has his own idiosyncratic agenda: Like Bowie, he believes in humor that alternately tweaks and embraces convention. Hence his use of the word “sackbut” (a forerunner of the modern trombone), and his dipping into the catalogs of iconoclasts like Sun Ra (“A Call For All Demons”) and Captain Beefheart (“Blabber and Smoke”) for songs that were actually among their more conservative offerings. Fiedler’s third cover choice, a scintillating take on Willie Colon’s “Calle Luna, Calle Sol,” references and reflects his Latin chops during his stints with Celia Cruz and Eddie Palmieri. These are sifted in among seven Fiedler originals to comprise a remarkably diverse stylistic palette. Fielder accurately concludes that the inherent limitations of the group’s instrumentation will give coherence to the collection.

Those looking for dovetailed bleats and roars will be immediately satiated by the opener, “Mixed Bag,” a four-ply brass weave with nappy metallic edges. But the surprise is how effectively Big Sackbut moves at slower tempos. “Don Pullen” is a creamy swoon capped by a gorgeous solo from Ryan Keberle. Trombonist Josh Roseman and the group tap into Beefheart’s skewed blues roots on “Blabber.” And Marcus Rojas is a revelation with an opening tuba solo on “Ging Gong” that gurgles with the resonance of a didgeridoo. In fact Rojas, who has likewise been vital to Douglas’s Brass Ecstasy and Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus, is the clear MVP of the Sackbut crew, providing a near-ubiquitous creative bottom and offering compelling counterpoint on most every trombone solo. Here’s hoping that he and the three ‘bones huff, puff and slide their way to another Fiedler-guided outing in the not-too-distant future.

A Nina Simone tribute that confounds expectations

Meshell Ndegeocello paying tribute to the late Nina Simone makes perfect sense. Both battled to establish themselves on their own inconvenient terms: A pair of iconoclastic black female musicians, strong-willed but sensitive, disdainful of genre boundaries, and soulful to the core. It also makes sense that one of the ways Pour Une Âme Souveraine (translated as “For A Sovereign Soul”) would honor Simone is by often confounding expectations in its song choices and treatments. The hallowed Leonard Cohen ballad, “Suzanne” becomes a brisk shuffle. With guest artist Toshi Reagon on board, the somber standard, “House of the Rising Sun” is transformed into a blistering rock rave-up. Simone’s own memorable versions were more conventional, but she’d hardly be one to argue the adventure.

Ndegeocello also does an admirable job of embracing Simone’s frequently angry and outspoken views on racial and social injustice but with her own creative slant. In particular she features Valerie June, a vocalist with a kewpie-doll pinch in her tone, to sing “Be My Husband,” giving it a ’60s-girl-group innocence that adds further punch to Simone’s narrative of a seemingly docile and loyal wife who only stays around because her spouse abuses her and she has nowhere else to go. She also scores in her selection of Cody ChestnuTT to sing “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” against a spare mix of flute and acoustic guitar. And when closing with the epic “Four Women,” arguably Simone’s most iconic song, Ndegeocello fashions a haunting, spectral backdrop that meshes perfectly with the song’s use of black female archetypes to recount the gothic history of their subjugation.

Not everything works, of course. To my ears, Ndegeocello’s vocal duet with Sinead O’Connor on “Don’t Take All Night” is as staid as the boring arrangement, and turning “See Line Woman” into a psychedelic spree sacrifices the rapid rhythmic sway that is the song’s primary virtue. But I’m also already returning to Lizz Wright’s glorious gospel pipes on “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” and loving the way Ndegeocello, unlike Simone, makes the word “happy” sound so vulnerable on “Feeling Good.” In other words, as long as one isn’t looking for a carbon copy of Nina Simone – which would be a doomed endeavor anyway – there is ample grist for spirited debate and cherished new keepsakes among these 14 tunes.

A dogged effort to redefine fusion

Donny McCaslin has long seemed a prime candidate to update and upgrade fusion jazz-rock. Since as far back as Seen From Above in 2000, his tenor saxophone style has been fueled by a rambunctious lyricism that isn’t afraid to leave skid marks on his phrases. By “Rock Me,” off Declaration in 2009, he’d discovered a fertile and yet phosphorous crossroads between prog-rock and hard bop, and a year later fattened the mix by adding electric bassist Tim Lefebvre.

But Casting For Gravity represents McCaslin’s most dogged effort thus far to redefine fusion. Lefebvre is back, paired with powerhouse drummer Mark Guiliana for a potent yet still ruggedly jazz-centric rhythm section, the backbone of the quartet. Versatile keyboardist Jason Lindner occasionally steps out for a spirited solo, but is more influential in helping to determine the texture and in setting and coloring the mood. Along with producer David Binney, a longtime McCaslin ally who also sparingly adds synthesizer, they provide McCaslin with the ability to create grand gestures. There are stop-and-go grooves that escalate in intensity and fall back on themselves in dramatic tension-and-release; tonal layers that morph from liquid silk to electric sizzle and evaporate; rhythmic struts containing melodic swagger and impulsive outbursts.

There are also ambient, gossamer shadings and trip-hoppy segments and songs (most obviously on the title track, “Love Song for an Echo” and “Alpha and Omega”) to which McCaslin credits Richard D. James of Aphex Twin as his inspiration. While they impressively broaden the bouquet, the bolder, burning tracks like “Tension,” Binney’s “Praia Grande” and the shifting, suite-like “Losing Track of Daytime” feel more impressive for blending the brutish revelry of rock with the harmonic complexity and gymnastic improvisation of jazz. Or, put more simply, “blazing a trail.”

Three masters communally engaged in filling up a broad empty canvas on the fly

Connoisseurs of bold, long-form jazz improvisation are gifted this first-ever trio performance by three titans of the form. Guitarist Joe Morris is first among equals, his mostly brittle-toned, single-note effusions adding to the relentless intensity of the rhythm section with the vigorous poise and beauty of a hummingbird. Not bothering with squawks, squeaks and other undue resonance, his rapid-fire notes nearly cluster as they dart and dip with both great exertion but also an unhurried efficiency that carries its own special grace. Gerald Cleaver seethes at low-level heat from the drum kit, maintaining a steady fusillade of snare and tom-tom beats that sometimes roll like ocean waves, and sometimes erupt like sparks, all without ever really abating.

Cleaver’s solo connects the 26:22 “Exophere” with the 25:22 “Thermosphere,” which together comprise the nearly 52-minutes of non-stop innovation that was the opening set of the trio’s performance at The Stone in New York on June 17, 2011. According to the liner notes, the room was hot and the musicians’ clothing was soaked in sweat at set’s end. You can feel every drop of it in the ensemble interplay, which is reliably torrid and devoid of histrionics.

The final two tracks, “Troposphere” and “Mesosphere,” are excerpted from the second set. Their power is hindered by their relative brevity, yet they’re intriguing for William Parker’s switch from contra bass to zintir, which is a Moroccan bass lute. In such a protean trio, Parker’s voice turned out to be the one compelled to slide in edgewise – he still rumbles magnificently, does some context-shifting arco work during the marathon first set, and presents an especially nice contrast with the zintir. If you are coming here primarily for Parker, however, his double-disc solo opus from 2011 is a better bet. On the other hand, if you’re coming here because it promises three masters communally engaged in filling up a big, broad empty canvas on the fly, step right up.

Delicate and subtly complex

This third installment of Harris Eisenstadt’s Canada Day recordings is the most delicate and subtly complex collection thus far. Some of that is probably due to the more elaborate orchestral work Eisenstadt composed just before embarking upon these pieces – indeed, a couple of the tracks are “trimmings” from that endeavor – and some of it stems from the greater familiarity and maturity that allows the Canada Day ensemble to execute such challenging, interwoven compositions so thoroughly. The only change in the Canada Day quintet since 2007 has been the recent switch from Eivind Opsvik to Garth Stevenson on bass. Also, in keeping with recent practice, the group work-shopped these tunes out on tour and then immediately headed for the studio to record them.

What results is a disc that gets better with repeated listening. The fun in, say, figuring out the rhythmic variations of “Slow and Steady,” or how “Shuttle Off This Mortal Coil” evolves from a slightly foreboding waltz into a driving toe-tapper, is more about the process than the eventual answer. And it is a renewing marvel to hear the massive, seasonally slow-and-seamless textural changes in the ironically-titled “Settled.”

There are also more immediate rewards, such as the ongoing artistry of trumpeter Nate Wooley, who is at his best working with Eisenstadt (they are regular members of each other’s ensemble) and especially amiable and accessible here. Although not quite as bawdy or “outside” as on many other records, Wooley continually stands out, be it his antic complementary interaction with drummer Eisenstadt down the stretch of “A Whole New Amount of Interactivity,” his mute solo on “the Magician of Lublin,” or his potent trilling on “Nosey Parker.”

Last but not least, mention must be made of “Song for Sara,” dedicated to Eisentstadt’s wife, Sara Schoenbeck, and set off by a gorgeous melody and keen horn interplay between Wooley and saxophonist Matt Bauder, with vibest Chris Dingman adding his deft and gentle touch. It ranks with Eisenstadt’s ode to his son (“Song For Owen”) on Canada Day II as enduring sonic family keepsakes.