Few jazz masters have seen their reputations yo-yo like Ahmad Jamal, now ascendant again, to judge by Saturday Morning, a French studio session recorded early in 2013 at age 82-and-a-half. There was a time when Jamal was considered disreputably dainty, a mere crowd-pleaser playing fussy, corseted arrangements of pretty tunes. The opening “Back to the Future” may serve as (re)introduction to the two-fisted Jamal — product of Pittsburgh, that font of piano talent: Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn, Dodo Marmarosa, Erroll Garner, Sonny Clark, Horace Parlan.

“Back to the Future” is kicked along by a delayed-second-beat Cuban syncopation via New Orleans’s Herlin Riley, who’d had an ’80s stint with the pianist, and favors a tight, in-the-pocket stance throughout — his cooking more about the hi-hat slapping shut than a ringing ride cymbal. There’s funk in Reginald Veal’s bass grooves too, not least when he doubles Jamal’s left hand for a fat reinforced foundation — as on the longer take of the title track, where after riding the groove a good while, the pianist takes some weird side trips. “The Line”‘s deep groove has more than a little dub reggae in it.

From early on, Jamal has been a great and witty quoter, studding solos with bits of odd songs from all over — quoting his own ’50s benchmark “Pavanne” on “Firefly,” the Animals’ “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on “One,” and the Association’s 1967 hit “Windy” near the end of “Silver” (an homage to pianist Horace). On Duke Ellington’s “I Got It Bad,” Jamal keeps divvying in snatches of Duke’s “Just Squeeze Me” and Ellington’s piano intro to Strayhorn’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” in effect juggling three tunes at once.

Not that the album is perfect; a loose and discursive “I’m in the Mood for Love” makes me long for his old trio’s taut economy. Rounding out the quartet, percussionist Manolo Badrena abets the Latin polyrhythms on bongos and conga, but also employs gizmos that should have been moth-balled long ago: flexatones, chime racks and whistles.

Jamal has been making deep-groove records for awhile — the 2011 recording Blue Moon, for instance. His modern stuff is splashier than the pristinely clean and precise jazz he played at first, but he was already using Afro-Caribbean rhythms back then. By the early ’50s, many small jazz bands had caught a mild Latin bug, adding a conga or bongo player. Jamal’s first trio had no drummer at all, but his under-praised guitarist Ray Crawford often mimicked bongos, slapping strings against the neck or pickup screws — as he did on “Will You Still Be Mine” or the spry Jamal arrangement of the kids’ song “Billy Boy” that other pianists cribbed. Crawford’s mock-bongos echoed on even after Jamal replaced him with kit drummers — notably Vernel Fournier, another New Orleanean bringing those second-line beats. (The classic statement from that trio is 1958′s live At the Pershing, one of the records that kept Chess/Argo afloat.)

Jamal’s trio music was so strikingly designed and cleanly executed that some critics dismissed it as cocktail music, until Miles Davis spoke up, pointing to Jamal’s influence on his own music — the understatement, use of silence and open space, and melodic orientation as an improviser. The several tunes Jamal wrote or recorded that Miles covered made his admiration plain — including “Billy Boy” and “Ahmad’s Blues,” features for Davis’s admiring pianist Red Garland. (Even more than Miles, Jamal exploits contrasting dynamics, very soft versus grandly loud: “I still hear orchestras in my head,” he told drummer Kenny Washington in 2003.)

Less obviously influential on Davis’s conception was Jamal’s way of tweaking a song’s form: adding interludes or tags (extended endings), or improvising over a form that differs from the melody’s. For the trio, every tune was a fresh project, a specific object with distinctive features to draw out. Miles really capitalized on those ideas in his great 1960s quintet — though sideman Cannonball Adderley had noted that very particular Jamal influence by 1959.

That was the year of Miles’s Kind of Blue, and the rise of modal improvising on unrelated scales. That album figures in a little whirlwind of serial influences, with Jamal at its center. In 1955, his trio with Crawford and bassist Israel Crosby recorded “Pavanne,” a 1935 light classic from composer Morton Gould’s Symphonette No. 2. Per Gould (and the orchestra in Jamal’s head), at around 1:30 they go into a holding pattern on one chord, then move it up a half step. They didn’t improvise on that episode; Crawford played a slinky little melody that sounded like a spontaneous fill, lifted straight from the Symphonette. But Miles liked that modulating holding pattern enough to build his classic blowing tune “So What” on it. And Miles’s sideman John Coltrane so liked improvising on that same form, he recycled it into his own “Impressions” two years later, borrowing Crawford’s “Pavanne” guitar lick for the melody — probably not realizing it originated with Morton Gould.

With the 1960s, Jamal’s reputation began to wane again, as he made albums with choirs, strings and electric piano. One of the first jazz gigs I ever saw, in 1974, remains one of the oddest: For the first set Jamal played his current single, the theme from M*A*S*H, for 45 minutes. The second set, he did it again.

Miles Davis in his 1989 autobiography lamented that Jamal was (again) underrated. After that, the pianist gradually ascended to elder statesman status. The NEA declared him a Jazz Master in ’94, and he worked and recorded regularly. He became easy to take for granted. Then a record like Saturday Morning comes along to remind you he can still deliver.

A perfectly constructed set of beautifully played, highly communicative jazz

One good thing about jazz is that it can be made persuasively without reinventing the wheel. There’s plenty of space at the outer reaches, but great value can still be found from music that stays in the tradition, assuming it’s coming from players who are thoroughly versed in jazz lineage and who are resourceful enough to not be merely copying what they’ve heard. Pianist Bruce Barth is one of these musicians, and his album Live at the Village Vanguard is a prime example of how someone who has learned from his elders can take acquired information and make it entirely fresh. Intimately recorded, Barth’s tone sounds lush and warmly mid-register, bassist Ugonna Okegwo is big-toned and responsive, and the redoubtable Al Foster is as sympathetically on the case as ever. The repertoire is a mix of particularly fine standards, some Monk and a few originals. Nicely paced throughout, everything sounds good, from the energetic opener, “Little Dirty,” through to the finale, a respectful and moving reading of Harold Arlen’s incomparable “When the Sun Comes Out.” Barth is a confident player, but not a showy one; he knows enough to understand that the best way to assay a composer like Arlen is to not overrule him. He knows how to play the tune.

But he can knock your socks off, too, whenever he feels like it, as can Okegwo and Foster. “Prospect Avenue Blues” has an irresistible pulse, spearheaded by a supercharged drum shuffle. The trio builds as it goes, but their control of the material is total; they can say a lot with small shifts in dynamics. It’s always a treat to hear “Star Eyes,” here given a gentle reading until the unit moves into a determined swing, with Okegwo carrying a lot of weight on his shoulders. I’m very partial to Barth’s well-reasoned take on Monk’s “San Francisco Holiday,” with its intricately articulated head. The pianist cites the composer enough to pay homage, then moves into his own voice, combining long, speedy runs with big two-handed chords. Foster pushes him along just enough. With Live at the Village Vanguard, we are given the privilege of listening to three compelling musicians working their way through a perfectly constructed set of beautifully played, highly communicative jazz. That’s no small thing.

The concert went very well — so well that a few days later, Swallow dropped out of school and showed up at the Bleys’ New York apartment. He quickly found a place of his own and began his apprenticeship. The bassist began working with Paul in trios that played a few of Carla’s tunes. Clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre’s calm and open trio did “Jesus Maria” (among others), a classic and typical Bley tune: morose and jocular at the same time, with a fetching but obsessively repetitive melody.

Swallow eventually began turning up on some of Paul Bley’s trio records. On Closer for ESP in 1965, they play seven of Carla’s early tunes, including the quasi-improvised ballad “Closer,” the blocky march “Batterie” and earworms “And Now the Queen” and “Ida Lupino” (that last inspired by Franky Valli and the Four Seasons, she said later). Like other Bley tunes, those two move in small steps, re-tracing the same ground over and over, like third-harmony parts with delusions of grandeur: pawn’s moves between shifting chords. That’s logic a bass player can relate to.

The 1960s was the age of Albert Ayler, and compositions with pithy motives that improvisers could run with. Carla’s tunes were ready-made for spontaneous variations. Swallow also started working with hardbop trumpet balladeer Art Farmer, who recorded Carla’s “Sing Me Softly of the Blues” and “Ad Infinitum.”

Then they all went their own ways. Paul and Carla Bley divorced, and she slowly came into her own as a composer and arranger who played in her own bands. Steve Swallow and Paul Bley wouldn’t record again until the 1980s and ’90s, usually with Jimmy Giuffre along.

Starting in the mid ’60s, Swallow spent more than a decade with vibist Gary Burton, plugging Carla’s tunes early on. An expanded Burton band quartet recorded Carla’s suite A Genuine Tong Funeral in 1967; Burton’s quintet waxed 1975′s all-Bley Dreams So Real, with newcomer Pat Metheny joining Mick Goodrick on guitar.

Swallow was still in the band, but he’d gone through a sea-change in the late ’60s. He’d swapped his acoustic bass for an electric, played with a pick no less. He heard bass guitar as foundational bass and singing guitar both: a voice that could cover the chord roots and melodic branches.

Which is how he came to play with Carla Bley at last, joining her nine- or 10-piece little big band in the late ’70s. (Their first electric bassist was Soft Machine’s Hugh Hopper.) If some of her tunes can sound like clever third-trombone lines, she also wrote full-blown melodies for bass, and no one sounded better playing them than Swallow. Then as now, he gets an extraordinarily woody sound from the electric, even as it sings in its baritone/guitar voice. Hear her “Reactionary Tango” from 1979′s excellent Social Studies. Much of the time, the bassline is the melody, graceful and tuneful, in tango rhythm, even as it dutifully outlines the roaming harmony.

Carla played various keyboards in her own units, and she and Swallow began recording together in all sorts of settings, in her Very Big Band, and in octet and sextet and quintet and quartet and trio and duo — usually hers, sometimes his. They got on so well they became a couple, and have stuck together ever since, these drily funny white-haired stick figures who even look like they go together.

Summer of 2013, each put out an ECM album on which the other plays. Carla Bley’s Trios recorded in April reunites them with a frequent ally, saxophonist Andy Sheppard, who puts her gorgeous melodies in the key light. Now in her mid 70s, Bley is not composing so much, and on she Trios revisits five older tunes, including her lovely ballad “Utviklingssang” from Social Studies, and “Vashkar,” which Swallow first recorded with Paul’s trio a half-century earlier. These are subdued, late career readings, warm and polished.

Bley plays piano on Trios and in their duo. Swallow has said one reason he assembled the quintet heard on Into the Woodwork (a drummerless foursome until Jorge Rossy talked his way in) was to hear Carla on organ, where she gets a lean, clean and purposeful sound far from pull-out-the-stops B3 virtuosi like Shirley Scott. The dour sense of humor glimpsed in some of her composed melodies comes out; quotes from “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and “Taps” in her “Still There” solo say it all about her drollery, and how seriously she takes herself.

She approaches organ less like a chooglin’ expressionist than an arranger asking what serves the tune best. Often, as with her own music, it’s enough to showcase the melody. Carla may not write much for herself anymore, but Swallow’s pen keeps moving. His “Back in Action” and “Unnatural Causes” are readymade for rowdy jamming, and show off the quintet (with Steve Cardenas on electric guitar and the under-heralded Chris Cheek on tenor) as one big groove machine.

Swallow had started composing in the 1960s (with “Eiderdown,” which became a minor standard) when he and Carla were first hanging out, so no surprise that his tunes sometimes resemble hers. “Exit Stage Left” could be one of Carla’s, with its infectious backbeat groove and push-pull bass rhythm, the slinky chordal movement and goofily circular blank-expression melody — and plenty of holes to let organ poke through. Why have a band if you can’t listen to your favorite person play, and play along?

A wide-ranging collection with multiple flavors

It is good to have Kenny Garrett back so firmly in the driver’s seat. Coming on the heels of Seeds From The Underground from 2012, Pushing The World Away marks the first time in a decade that Garrett has released albums under his own name in consecutive years. It’s a wide-ranging collection, with multiple flavors, variously featuring three different drummers, two pianists, a percussionist, a guest trumpeter and a chamber string section, with Garrett departing from his alto sax for soprano on one tune and piano on another. And yet the package coheres through the energetic flair that is Garrett’s signature virtue as both player and composer. Thus, all three timekeepers mostly push and punish the beat, and where, among the pianists, Vernell Brown prefers cantering runs a la McCoy Tyner while Benito Gonzalez is more oriented to Latin jazz, they are specifically accommodated by Garrett’s compositions.

The lone non-Garrett original among the dozen songs is Burt Bacharach’s “I Say A Little Prayer,” performed with a little more church reverence and south-of-the-border lilt than the Dionne Warwick hit. As on Seeds, there are a bevy of tribute tunes, including “A Side Order of Hijiki” for the late Mulgrew Miller (keyed by Gonzalez’s bristling hard-bop run just seconds into the song); the vaguely Latin “Hey Chick” for Garrett’s recent bandmate Chick Corea; the self-explanatory “Chucho’s Mambo” for Chucho Valdes; and “J’ouvert (Homage To Sonny Rollins),” a calypso-tinged jaunt that has Garrett quoting Sonny’s “St. Thomas” at the end. Finally, “Brother Brown” is a paean to Pushing co-producer Donald Brown, performed on piano by Garrett with a string trio.

But the best material here has no overt agenda. The title track (with Garrett on soprano) and “Alpha Man” are both nearly nine minutes long, giving the ensemble room to roam through an array of moods and impulses, with the bobbing yet linear forward thrust that is Garrett’s métier. “Lincoln Center” is a sophisticated piece topped off by a glorious Garrett alto solo. “Homma San” is a simple yet gorgeous ballad, the best Garrett has written, and deserving of becoming a future standard. And “Rotation” closes things out with the relentless propulsion of all three drummers and two pianists on the same track. Such a fertile lineup is emblematic of the creative gusto informing Garrett’s career as he heads into his mid 50s.

Remaining at the very top of his very considerable game

Occasionally I’ll play Wofford for friends, savvy listeners who, nevertheless, don’t know him. Invariably, I’ll hear, “Who is this guy? He’s fantastic.” It’s surprising how completely he has fallen through the mainstream cracks. With his lean but elegant tone, understated but creative phrasing, and reassuring but advanced chordal sense, Mike Wofford has gone his quiet way for the past 50 or so years, a better jazz pianist than nearly everyone else on the planet. It’s Personal again shows him blending stylistic elements of Bill Evans, Bud Powell and Art Tatum to form to a singular voice.

Like fellow under-appreciated counterpart Claire Fisher, some of this anonymity can be attributed to having spent a lot of time laboring in recording studios, doing other people’s projects. But there’s also a fundamental modesty to the way Wofford plays. He’s got incredible technique, but he delivers it in the least flag-waving way possible. And he finds elements in tunes that are often overlooked. By slowing down Jackie McLean’s “Little Melonae,” he makes it less edgy and more melancholy than most renditions. This gives him opportunities to do more than run the changes. Every line counts, every line is chiseled. “Springsville,” which will be forever associated with the Miles Davis/Gil Evans partnership, is a tour de force. By invoking 13th chords with augmented 11ths, Wofford suggests the airiness of spring. By quoting freely from “If I Should Lose You,” he adds a layer of poignancy. Wofford also strips “Once in a Lifetime” of all its shmaltziness; chords are deliberately kept angular, single note lines are swift and clean and unerringly logical. The beautiful “I Waited for You” is taken from its Brazilian origins in order to become a spacious ballad.

Wofford composes two tribute pieces for It’s Personal — “Cole Porter” and “Hines Catch Up.” The former has a harmonic density and evolved melodic content of some of its namesake’s compositions, and the later works in some left-handed 10ths beneath a blues, but both tunes are about evocation, not slavish mimicry. Maybe best of all is the superb “Nica’s Tempo,” a composition reminiscent of some of Martial Solal’s soundtrack for the Godard film “Breathless.” With an alluring melody and dark chords, the piece lends itself to exploration, and for four all-too-brief minutes, Mike Wofford reels off line after line of stunning improvisation. You sense he could do this stuff all day. He remains at the very top of his very considerable game.

A joyous and heartfelt album from one of music's true keepers of the flame

Time has revealed drummer Rashied Ali as one of the key figures during a seminal era of jazz, the period in the mid-to-late 1960s when modal jazz began its evolution toward “free.” Ali was presented — some might say strapped — with what seemed like the impossible task of replacing Elvin Jones in John Coltrane’s quintet. Jones and Tony Williams, with the Miles Davis Quintet, were by far the most important post bebop drummers in jazz — arguably, they are the two most important drummers in jazz history — and it may have seemed that Ali had stepped into shoes that were too big for him. Such wasn’t the case: Ali’s hiring was a crucial final step Trane needed to take to move away from horizontal rhythm, the trap of moving linearly from Point A to Point B.

With Rashied Ali, the music moved up and down instead of sideways, a transition that represented the most radical and important change in jazz since the introduction of modal playing a decade or so earlier. But, as happened with Pharaoh Sanders, another notable Coltrane alumnus, Ali gravitated toward a more traditional playing approached as time passed. At the Vision Festival finds him exploring middle-period John Coltrane as well as some Thelonious Monk. James Hurt is an aggressive pianist with a lyrical streak (think McCoy Tyner), tenor saxophonist Greg Tardy is a powerhouse with intelligence, and bassist Omer Avital plays with a highly developed sense of what his fellow group members require for support.

The leader never upstages his younger cohorts, but he clearly shapes the music from behind the drum kit. His drumming here calls to mind that of Joe Chambers, similarly able to color his band’s music with a few judiciously applied phrases. “Ask Me Now” is a quiet masterpiece, able to sit alongside the very best versions of the tune. Ali’s former employer is visited on “Impressions.” It is a truly strange time warp, a Coltrane late iteration band’s drummer playing a version of a tune made famous by an earlier incarnation of that band in a style that is even older than Trane’s original version. Yet it still sounds modern (which says a lot for Coltrane, when you consider it). “Universe” is an extended modal workout, with Hurt tearing out of the starting gate. When Tardy makes his entrance, he brings the heat down a little in order to rebuild it. It’s worth noting how vital Ali’s kicks are to helping the tenor player up the ante; by the end of his solo, Tardy is digging deep. Hurt hits an ostinato figure over which drums and bass solo together, the band playing as one. At the Vision Festival is a joyous and heartfelt album played by one of the music’s true keepers of the flame and three very worthy acolytes.

The daredevilry of Shorter’s jazz is utterly compelling and yet easily underrated, because even as he “breaks out of something” he thoroughly inhabits it. He was the most influential composer and cohort for two of the greatest bandleaders in jazz — Art Blakey and Miles Davis — because he was able to understand and accommodate what they wanted and needed and leveraged their genius to help stimulate and innovate his own. That’s why Blakey honored Shorter with the title of musical director for his classic hard-bop finishing school, the Jazz Messengers. It is why Davis referred to Shorter as “intellectual musical catalyst” for the quintet many regard as the finest of the trumpeter’s storied career.

Even as Shorter was fundamentally altering the shape of two iconic bands, he was rolling out his own landmark albums during his incredibly fertile decade of the 1960s. As the ’70s arrived, the fusion jazz he helped pioneer with Miles led to his co-founding of Weather Report, arguably the most renowned fusion band of all time. But as the popularity of Weather Report reached new heights, Shorter’s interest in other areas and aspects of his life, especially his study of Buddhism, decreased his absorption in music. For nearly a quarter-century, his musical projects became more fragmented, and his involvement in them was frequently subsidiary.

A new century — or, more specifically, a 2000 performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival — resurrected Shorter’s “I dare you” approach to jazz. The festival gig inaugurated the Wayne Shorter Quartet, an ensemble that became the intellectual musical catalyst for Shorter as both a composer and improviser. Over the past decade, the telepathy among the band members has become reminiscent of what Shorter had with Miles, creating a resplendent twilight to his career. The year of his 80th birthday may culminate in his latest album, Without a Net, being named the best jazz record of 2013.

A second duets album brings more Webb gems back to light

In retrospect, having Jimmy Webb record new versions of classic songs from his back catalog with artists who have either recorded or been profoundly influenced by his work seems like a pretty obvious idea. But it wasn’t until 2010′s Just Across the River that Webb did this, inviting the likes of Billy Joel, Lucinda Williams and Linda Ronstadt to sing duets with him on favorites such as “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston” and “All I Know.” It went well enough to spawn this follow-up, which is even more rewarding.

That’s largely because of Webb’s willingness to venture beyond the best-known chapters of his songbook. “Sleeping in the Daytime,” from his 1970 debut, never charted for anyone, but Lyle Lovett pushes him to a dynamic remake of the tune here. On “Where’s The Playground Susie,” a minor Glen Campbell hit in 1969, Webb finds another country singer who gets the power of a great melody in Keith Urban. The graceful ballad “Adios,” a late-’80s album highlight for Ronstadt, is a perfect fit for the rich warmth of Amy Grant’s voice. And when Webb does turn to one of his major songs — the pop-classical juggernaut “MacArthur Park” — he taps no less than Brian Wilson to fill in the multilayered harmonies.

Four virtuosos individuating and coalescing in bold, dramatic, prismatic fashion

To call Prism (both the name of this album and Dave Holland’s new all-star quartet) fusion jazz might scare away the audience that will most appreciate this music. But the swelling, then soaring energy of jazz-rock is frequently invoked, with patient explosions reminiscent of Holland’s early days with Miles Davis, John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra and, especially, Holland’s classic Extensions record, which has fallen into mysterious obscurity since being named the Album of the Year for 1989 in the Downbeat critics’ poll.

As on Extensions, Prism features Kevin Eubanks as a primary soloist, and the former Tonight Show guitarist and bandleader delivers arguably the most enthralling and incendiary work of his underrated jazz career. He heats the funky contours of his opener, “The Watcher,” to a fiery glow, lives up to the smoldering Hendrixian blues (a la “Red House”) connection implicit in the Hollins number “Empty Chair,” and ventilates into a fast, phosphorous frenzy to climax the aptly-titled, 10-minute “Evolution.”

Good as he is, Eubanks is barely first among equals on Prism, as all four musicians individuate and coalesce in bold, dramatic, prismatic fashion. Each member contributes at least two songs, and the composer sets the tone. Drummer Eric Harland provides a gospel-soul drum-and-organ groove on “Choir,” and the gorgeous closing ballad, “Breathe,” which is a vehicle for pianist Craig Taborn. But Harland also excels at the sort brittle-beat carpet-bombing that catapulted Billy Cobham to fame. Taborn pens “Spirals,” the sort of oblong, cerebral tune that would be a natural fit for his current trio (and yet works well as a change-of-pace here), and “The True Meaning of Determination,” which leads with an exquisite Holland solo and eventually features one of those hop-scotching Taborn solos (fans of the late Don Pullen know the style) that eventually, brilliantly congeals. And Holland, well, along with his “Empty Chair” gift to Eubanks, his “A New Day,” brings his backbone beats up from the basement furnace to the dining room table with delightful insistence and urgency.

Perhaps the reason Extensions faded from consciousness so quickly was because it was a one-off project — that band never reunited. It would be a crime to let Prism suffer a similar fate.

An audacious and confident debut that radiates smart energy

Few modern jazz debuts have been as audacious and confident as 23-year-old singer Cécile McLorin Salvant’s WomanChild. The climactic “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” builds, recedes and then builds some more, heading for the most dramatic high-note finish since Sir Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park.” There are moments when it sounds like there are four or five singers trapped inside, fighting to come out at once. It’s thrilling, and a little over the top. It’d be too much if she couldn’t be subtle too, as on “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.” McLorin Salvant slides around the beat, shading her timbre all sorts of ways: veiled one moment, barrel-chested the next, cool Jeanne Lee morphing into diva Sarah Vaughan. Her taste in material is offbeat too; the most recent non-original is Fats Waller’s 1942 “Jitterbug Waltz,” where the singer plays piano with some that old Harlem-rhythm feel; it speaks to her love of odd corners of jazz history. The oldest of several oldies is the man-versus-machine ballad “John Henry,” where her usual pianist Aaron Diehl (fronting a crack trio) turns percussive prepared-piano effects into John Henry’s hammers. The program is deep and wide, and good humored — WomanChild radiates smart energy.

Iverson and Co. go to the school of jazz pioneer Lennie Tristano

The Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson has assembled a fascinating quartet comprised of the staunch 85-year old alto saxophonist Lee Konitz and the former rhythm section from the Brad Mehldau Trio, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy. Konitz was the most renowned student of the idiosyncratic jazz pioneer Lennie Tristano, and in his typically stellar liner notes, Iverson claims that Costumes Are Mandatory “documents the four of us in dialog with the Tristano school.”

But the highlights here often stem from Iverson jostling the venerable Konitz into fresh contexts, beginning with the two versions of the blues “Blueberry Ice Cream” that bookend the disc. “Body and Soul,” a duet between Konitz and Grenadier, is another gem, featuring some of the year’s finest contra bass jazz, a song in which Konitz is both maestro and foil. (Tristano famously believed bass and drums should stick to a metronomic script.)

Despite Iverson’s entreaties, Konitz sits out on a rendition of the Fats Domino hit, “Blueberry Hill,” which would be anathema to Tristano but just right for some Bad Plus-style revelry and deconstruction from Iverson. The two do combine for some deconstruction on a brilliantly terse, impressionistic and ultimately sweet version of “Try A Little Tenderness,” that will be mostly unrecognizable to Otis Redding and Frank Sinatra fans, but is quintessential Konitz and rewards repeated listens. Tristano is directly addressed on his own “317 East 32nd St.” and a standard he and Konitz used to play, “It’s You Or No One,” but the melody is delivered only at the end, and where Iverson’s apes Tristano’s rigorously knotty implacability on “It’s You (Tempo Complex),” he opts for the model of Thelonious Monk on the more complete take of “It’s You.”

Meanwhile, Ethan Iverson is a presence to be treasured in jazz today, from his ever-enlightening blog, Do The Math, to his superb liner notes (his comments on Eric Revis’s City of Asylum are better than any review), to inspired, adventurous assemblages like the quartet on Costumes Are Mandatory. Long may he roam.

Showing power in subtlety

Bassist Henri Texier’s Respect resonates with a quiet strength — an authority that doesn’t call attention to itself, but which in nonetheless evident from the album’s first notes. When you consider the personnel — Lee Konitz on alto, Bob Brookmeyer on trombone, electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Paul Motian, along with Texier himself — this kind of assurance makes a lot of sense. They’re all fundamentally modest players, but each has a long and notable history in jazz (a case can be made for every one of them having a part in the making of that history) that allows access to its entire vocabulary.

Texier is a savvy leader. You always know he’s there, but he regards his function as providing support for the other players; the more ear-catching bass solos are generally ceded to Swallow’s electric. Still, it’s palpably Texier’s album. Everything moves from the bass up, and his anchoring lines set the texture and tone for each piece. Texier, Swallow and Motian lock up to set up a dangerous-sounding vamp on the opening title track. The bassists double huge fifths, which give way to Swallow’s lyrical, guitar-range solo. Brookmeyer is spacious, his great burnished tone carrying his turn in front. Motian once again shows how adept he was at saying a lot while using very few words. Everyone here is a prime changes player, so it’s satisfying to hear them close things out by showing how much can be done with the chords. The quintet also makes it so plain that you don’t have to shout to get people’s attention, and that there can be plenty of power in subtlety.

That tradition continues to this day, with modern jazz musicians discovering little compositional diamonds in modern pop. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. While honoring the past and communicating in a shared, established language is a defining quality of jazz, so is the tendency to adopt a forward-thinking approach to music, seeking to expand that shared language in ways that are both experimental and innovative. Considering how many modern jazz artists have grown up listening to a variety of genres, it’s only natural that they’d turn to these influences as they develop their own personal sound. The songs in this list are just a few examples of that enduring phenomenon, and offer a glimpse of modern jazz musicians as they compile a new edition of standards — a new songbook for a new era.

By the 1970s, Miles and other American jazzers had gone electric, and English art rockers (sometimes vaguely) associated with the Canterbury school favored extended improvising over vamping backdrops. These musicians coming from different directions might sound uncannily alike. Slip Return to Forever’s “Beyond the Seventh Galaxy” into The Rotter’s Club by Hatfield and the North and it wouldn’t sound out of place, Lenny White’s funky drumming possibly excepted. RTF’s Chick Corea and Hatfield’s Dave Stewart were digging into the same twisty riffs and new keyboard sounds.

Two new albums recall that very strain of ’70s jazz-rock fusion, one unconsciously, the other very deliberately. The former is Life in the Sugar Candle Mines by drummer Gerald Cleaver’s Black Host; the latter, Dutch trio eBraam’s 3, is an extended shoutout to 1970′s Third by trend-setting jazzy rockers Soft Machine.

Black Host’s lineup wouldn’t ordinarily prompt a fusion connection, save for new-star speed picker Brandon Seabrook on skronky electric. Like Cleaver, the other players mostly play smart, gnarly acoustic jazz: altoist Darius Jones, bassist Pascal Niggenkemper and the quintet’s Cecil Taylor-esque wild card, pianist Cooper-Moore. Still, the blowing here is very focused on the material. There’s plenty of sustained textural play: long-tone melodies and fused timbres from alto and guitar, off-center grooves from drums and bass (and sometimes piano). All that’s plain on the opening “Hover,” but the pithy, anthemic theme that arrives at around 4:40 could have been lifted from Soft Machine’s Third.

Cleaver is an eclectic listener; was that part of his mix? The Detroit-reared drummer kindly fielded a query. “I know what you mean with the Soft Machine connection. I was aware of the music but didn’t listen to it. To be honest, Elton John, Captain & Tennille and Neil Diamond are more of an influence. My mom hipped me to great pop music, our kitchen radio fixed to CKLW, from Windsor across the river. My older sister was listening to everything soulful: Motown, Stax, Crusaders, Deodato, etc. My older brother loved Hendrix. Everyone loving Sly. My dad was and is the jazz guy, playing late Coltrane and [Detroit/New York bop pianist] Barry Harris. Growing up with a jazz-drumming father, an open-minded bebop baby, is one reason I could synthesize the same sources as the Soft Machine guys.”

Rock for melody, then, and jazz for the improvising. “Test-Sunday” has another good hook, set off by Beefhearty ashcan-school dissonances. Seabrook’s spiky Fender jittering is closer to the suburban garage than Allan Holdsworth; I’ve never heard him play two notes of bebop. Seabrook’s noise and Cooper-Moore’s free jazz outbursts frame and buoy up the melody statements, instead of pushing them aside. That’s very Soft Machine.

Cleaver’s tunes can take their time: Wavering alto and guitar long tones on “Gromek” sound like ambulances Dopplering in the distance and reverberating in an urban maze. Cleaver manipulated some of the recorded sound in post-production, too, lightly glitched and treated it to deepen the sheen. He takes the treatments a little farther on “Wrestling,” which lands somewhere between Song X‘s electrodensity and an After Bathing at Baxter’s sound collage. Compared to that, “May Be Home” is an Elton John ballad — Sir Elton named for Soft Machine Third saxophonist Elton Dean, come to think of it.

The trio eBraam used to be known as pianist Michiel Braam’s Wurli Trio — one of his several diverse bands. On 3 they declare their intention to honor Soft Machine’s Third by playing triads, thirds and triple meters — such basic building blocks of Western music, you suspect a hoax. In fairness, they do cover a Soft’s vocal tune, “A Certain Kind” from their rockish second album (sweetened by angelic harp), and the sleek melodies and pumped-up rhythms suggest kinship. Safe to say eBraam play music steeped in the same era (when electronic keyboards were a-burgeoning) and the same sensibility, working the crevasses between musical genres.

Third had four jams stretched across 2 LPs; eBraam’s nine tunes in 46 minutes force more variety. Not that I’m knocking Soft Machine’s minimalist-inspired keyboard repetitions, which echo in 3‘s “Augmented Seconds,” a track that also plays tricky games with rubbery timing. (Another declared inspiration: Pythagorean triangles.) In truth, sometimes it all sounds like an excuse to trot out goofy vintage keyboard sounds, and I’m not knocking that, either. (They’re largely replicated on modern equipment; see reviewer Beppe Colli’s awesome breakdown of numerous specfic keyboards invoked). Braam has a Sun Ra-like gift for mining each quirky timbre’s most useful/expressive qualities. Like England’s ’70s art fusioneers (did we mention Brand X?) eBraam improvise and play rockish beats without getting too ponderous with either: one tendency dares and tempers the other.

Equal parts jazz adventurousness and pop assimilation

Bassist Chris Morrissey’s sophomore effort is approachably left-of-center jazz, the sort of thing you might play at a party where the guests enjoy Ornette Coleman’s Tomorrow Is the Question! as much as Fleet Foxes. The Minneapolis-to-New York transplant Morrissey enlists a crack crew, including drummer Mark Guiliana, pianist Aaron Parks and Bon Iver tenor saxophonist Michael Lewis; The Bad Plus and Happy Apple tub-thumper Dave King is producer.

North Hero begins zippily enough, “The Spirit of Chanhassen” dashing through circuitous lines like rush hour commuter trains. Guiliana creates exhilarating forward motion with full set rhythms and swashbuckling cymbal swipes while Parks drops McCoy Tyner-like comps in the background. “Midland, Texas Picnic Area” maintains the pace, its Monkish melody dotting a bouncy old-school jazz rhythm. The song’s duet section between Guiliana and Lewis is a highlight, the pair recalling Billy Higgins and Sonny Rollins. “Roman Subway” swerves mightily through a bustling Latin rhythm before “One Worn Mile” slows the pace, way down: Like a smoldering cigarette about to burn your fingers, the song hovers in mid air, working a burlesque shuffle and a twilit, toot-toot horn melody. Then the album deflates somewhat; “Hands Crystals Anderson” plods, “Lullaby For Twins” generates little momentum. Though oddly paced, North Hero is engaging, equal parts jazz adventurousness and pop assimilation.

A dozen originals highlighted by the bassist's joyously puckish attitude

Probably the most underrated aspect of Steve Swallow’s music is the joyously puckish attitude he sneaks into many of his compositions. The dozen Swallow originals comprising Into The Woodwork are highlighted by this slightly giddy elegance, which has become his secret weapon. An electric bassist of modest temperament, refined taste, wry humor and a thirst for adventure, Swallow can’t help but mess around with the conventions of exquisite chamber music or technically adroit jazz-rock fusion. That’s how he comes up with the faux-melancholy of the perfectly-named “Sad Old Candle,” a bruised tone poem that flickers and forges ahead, shadowed by the smoke — in the guise of gentle cymbals — of drummer Jorge Rossey. On the flip side, “Unnatural Causes” is a bridled jazz-rocker containing spirited solos from saxophonist Chris Cheek and guitarist Steve Cardenas.

The fifth member of Swallow’s quintet is his longtime partner in music and love, Carla Bley, herself a formidable composer. Her swirling organ is the blood of this record, continually nourishing as it permeates the body of these songs. She sounds like Gregg Allman setting up a solo for brother Duane (it is Cheek’s sax instead) on the title track, twirls a curlicue circus riff against Rossey’s jackhammer drumming on “Back In Action,” and skulks around with Swallow’s bass on “Grisly Business.” But mostly, her even flow (no sudden burps or harsh chords) is perceptive and enriching for the ensemble tone and harmony.

Swallow rarely solos, coming closest on an extended duet with Cardenas on “Suitable For Framing” — another inspired title, since nary a note seems out of place. These evocative, winsome songs are his chief contribution. The best one, in which all five members graze against each other’s unpretentious goodwill in a seemingly effortless flow, is called “Still There.” After more than 50 years of strumming and plucking, the same can be said for Steve Swallow.

'20s music that speaks easy and sings even easier

Some things never change. Seduction and courtship rituals have always been one of the compulsive excuses for making music. Though these gathered paeans to coupling and coupling might appear quaint on the surface, it’s only because time has curtained their lasciviousness with a misty-lensed nostalgia. The recent Great Gatsby (updated with a hip-hop soundtrack) and Boardwalk Empire attest to the fact that the ’20s were rife with the sound of bodices ripping, skirts shorting and morals in flux, fueled by bootleg liquor and a sense of joyous transgression. No other decade within the past century, except perhaps for the 1960s, transformed sexual mores into even-mores; and for the first time, there was a record industry in place, ready to promote and celebrate its mating call.

These selections, ranging over two discs (Volume 2 is available here), run the gamut from innocent (“Ain’t She Sweet,” courtesy of Ben Bernie & His Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra) to guilty-as-charged (Ben Selvin’s “My Sin,” which of course is the penance paid for “loving you”). Helen Kane, who would provide the voice for Betty Boop, oop-oop-a-doops “I Want To Be Bad” and shimmies “I Want To Be Loved By You.” Superstars of the day abound: Rudy Vallee megaphones “My Vagabond Lover,” Eddie Cantor is “Makin’ Whoopee,” Cliff Edwards (also known as Ukulele Ike) heads-tails “Good Little Bad Little You.” There is female desire — Annette Hanshaw and Her Sizzling Syncopators’ “I Must Have That Man” — and a nod to gender-blending with the Savoy Havana Band’s “Masculine Women, Feminine Men.” The dance craze of the moment is free-styled in “The Original Charleston” (Isham Jones) and “Charleston Charley” (Bert Firman) along with their respective Orchestras.

Beyond lyrics, the collections are valuable for their window into performance styles of the 1920s. With rhythm supplied by banjo (the guitar was not yet percussive or loud enough to be heard in large ensembles), the emphasis is on dancing. Vocals are placed somewhere in the middle of each selection, almost as a bridge between the surrounding instrumental themes; and the spotlight usually shines upon the maestro: Coon-Sanders, Vincent Lopez, Ted Weems, Fred Waring.

Saucy, with a wink of an eye and a coy come-hither, this is music that speaks easy and sings even easier. Pass the bathtub gin, and as Irving Aaronson and His Commanders puts it, “Let’s Misbehave!”

The legendary group finally releases a full set of original compositions

It’s hard to imagine there’s anything the Preservation Hall Jazz Band hasn’t accomplished in its long life. The group, which was founded at the renowned Preservation Hall in New Orleans, has spent five decades preserving local music traditions while creating a few of their own, thanks to an influx of younger musicians bringing new ideas. As a result, the Jazz Band has become a local institution and one of the hottest acts in the city. Despite the fact that it’s cramped and un-air-conditioned, most nights Preservation Hall turns away more people than it admits.

One thing the Jazz Band has somehow never done is release a full album of original compositions, but their latest, That’s It!, checks that off their to-do list. Nothing here sounds obviously new: These 11 rousing tracks are so steeped in local technique that they could believably pre-date the band. Tinges of gospel (“Dear Lord (Give Me Strength)”), vaudeville (“Rattlin’ Bones”) and speakeasy jazz (“I Think I Love You”) suggest the form’s infinite malleability. The piano ballad “Emmalena’s Lullaby” exudes an easy sentimentalism, as though it had been played at the end of the night at French Quarter pubs for a hundred years.

That’s It! was recorded at the Preservation Hall and produced by Jaffe and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, which explains its eccentric acoustics as well as its lively pace. In other words, these songs nod to tradition but possess too much energy and idiosyncrasy to succumb to Big Easy nostalgia. Instead, That’s It! makes a highly persuasive case for New Orleans jazz as a modern and still very lively strain of roots music.

Playful but not cute; both airy and plangent

Pianoless quartets with alto sax and trumpet on the front line inevitably conjure comparisons to Ornette Coleman’s seminal ensemble. The foursome assembled by drummer Jeff Williams on Another Time in 2011, and reprised here on The Listener, seems like a purposeful extension of the Coleman lineage. The original songs, most of them by Williams, are playful but not cute, and feel both airy and plangent as they wend their way forward. Bassist John Hebert, like Charlie Haden with Coleman, is an inventive rhythmic tent pole. Altoist John O’Gallagher favors skittering phrases while trumpeter Duane Eubanks features a more staccato attack; they complement each other as much in succeeding solos as in their unison passages.

All of this is reminiscent of Coleman’s quartet, yet Williams and company aren’t slavish imitators. They’re simply using the freedom Coleman created to fashion inside-outside explorations like “Scrunge/Search Me,” Latin-ish post-bop like “Borderline,” and a slightly skewed ballad-standard such as “Dedicated To You” in the same package to listeners who not only appreciate but thirst for the diversity. That The Listener is a live recording — the result of London transplant Williams bringing his New York cohorts over to an intimate English club — adds a welcome dollop of intensity.

A particularly strong effort from this substantial musician

Pianist/composer Kris Davis is a patient musician. And she expects her collaborators, as well as her listeners, to be patient too. It’s not that she doesn’t have the requisite technique to bowl you over (she does), but her albums generally have a developing tone, and it’s best to take them whole, allowing them to unwind. Jazzier than modern classical, more formal than pure jazz, her territory holds to both idioms with assurance but is trapped in neither.

On Capricorn Climber, Davis keeps company with four other like-minded musicians, including longtime playing partner Ingrid Laubrock. Violist Mat Maneri has history of playing genre-defying music, having gotten his first bit of high-profile attention with his father, the iconic multi-reed player Joe Maneri. But Mat also conspicuously held up his half of the partnership on the titanic “Algonquin” with pianist Cecil Taylor. His education has been forged in fire. Tom Rainey shows up on many adventurous albums. Listen to the complex patterns he sets up a minute into “Too Tinkerbell” and you’ll understand why. Bassist Trevor Dunn has likewise emerged as a hot property in recent years. He’s got a deep background in the kind of communal idioms (he plays electric bass, and started out in rock) that make him a good choice for the projects that Davis favors.

I’m not sure what’s too Tinkerbell about “Too Tinkerbell.” Carefully played though it is, it’s an uneasily shifting piece, with Laubrock and Maneri sharing the front line while Davis plays tiny, off-kilter phrases behind them. Bass and drums augment the quietly turbulent mood. The opening of “Pass the Magic Hat” could almost have been played by one of Keith Jarrett’s or Paul Bley’s trios. Possibly the most straight-up jazz piece in the program, it still maintains twists and turns, albeit ones with all its hits nailed meticulously by all the players. “Trevor’s Luffa Complex” showcases the bassist’s hearty tone and easy facility around the fretboard, the execution always in service to making good music. The title track is an elusive piece, introduced by small, fast gestures to slow to a rhythmically tensile exchange. The piece speeds up again, hair-trigger call-and-response statements that grow in weight as the improvisations develop. “Dreamers in a Daze” reinforces just how much of Capricorn Climber resides in the collective subconscious. This is difficult music to play, requiring great facility and an uncanny sense of what is taking place around you; it is often best to allow yourself to tap into what’s hidden under the surface. Everyone here is adept at this, and these skills make for some subtly powerful music. Everything Kris Davis puts her name on is worth checking out, but Capricorn Climber is a particularly strong effort from this substantial musician.

A rare acoustic bass duet album from two veteran players

Duet acoustic bass albums aren’t without precedent in jazz, but they are rare, and they demand a lot from their performers. The bar was set very high by Dave Holland and Barre Phillips with their 1971 recording Music for Two Basses. Phillips has since recorded in this format this Joelle Leandre, who, in turn, has done a bass duet album with William Parker. Now bassists Mark Dresser and Mark Helias, the eponymous Marks Brothers, have put themselves in fast company, where they have predictably fared extremely well.

Both players have had long and varied careers, playing with a lot of the cream of the forward-thinking jazz crop. Each has the requisite full-bodied tone, the accurate intonation and time, and the kind of fluency with the bow that are now standard-issue requirements for first-tier working bassists. But they also have more than those things: Dresser and Helias are both exemplary group musicians, sympathetic and open-eared, as well as persuasive soloists. The Marks Brothers spend a lot of time with the Marx Brothers here, starting with “Zeppo,” a rubbery piece of part funk, part bowed bass concerto. Essentially a one-chord vamp, the bassists toss the solo spots back and forth. More serious is the dual arco of “Short.” Meticulously executed, stately in theme and richly voiced (often in open 6ths), it illustrates how a technically challenging piece, in the right hands, can be played without any visible effort, presenting just the music. “The Comb Over” brings to mind the solo bass work of Henry Grimes — Dresser and Helias have a similar capacity to dig their heels into the time, and both have woody, natural sounds — although Dresser and Helias focus a bit more on speed than Grimes. They trade phrases, each fast thinking, neither asking nor giving a quarter. A draw.

“Chico,” one of the more madcap Marx brothers, is given a surprisingly tender tribute. Ruminative to start, then increasingly probing, the bassists, through the use of the bows, glissandi and space, manage to sound like a string quartet. Chico Marx was himself a pianist of remarkable accomplishment; it’s possible that’s the aspect of his talent that Dresser and Helias were zeroing in on. “Pentahouve” shows that one bassist can solo over a foundation provided by another bassist without cluttering up the piece. The two exchange flurries of ideas, always entirely articulate. The program ends with the bluesy “Modern Pine.” Dresser bows on top, Helias walks underneath. It’s playing that is at once funky and elegant, straddling both sides of the cultural street.

Challenging but accessible contemporary jazz

In jazz, as in many things, how one achieves a high profile is determined as much by geography and luck of the draw as by anything else. Consider the bass player Bruce Gertz. Although he’s known throughout the U.S. and has some following worldwide, his name doesn’t show up in the polls, he’s not a featured performer at festivals and he’s not signed to a major label. Still, it’s apparent from the first track of Open Mind that Gertz belongs in the front rank of contemporary bassists, unquestionably the equal of more celebrated NYC counterparts. He’s got solid but flexible time, a deep, warm tone and a sophisticated harmonic foundation. He’s capable of pushing a group, but he’s also a good team player. For Open Mind, he has assembled a heavy-duty crew of peers, players whose language is largely based around the best of 1960s modal mainstream (think Blue Note Records generally, and maybe Wayne Shorter specifically), but with ears for where jazz has come since then.

Probably the most high-profile player here is tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi, a schooled veteran with an impressive pedigree. Bergonzi plays hard (coming mostly out of mid-Coltrane), and requires a rhythm section that doesn’t flag under the intensity of his attack. The album starts with “Eighty Eight,” a tune in 11/8 (or alternating 6/8 and 5/8, take your pick) over a vaguely rock-tinged vamp. It’s engaging and easy to listen to, and has plenty of substance. The band stays in funk and vamp territory at the start of “Glad You’re Hear,” then alternates that with straight-ahead time. Bergonzi is fluent and full-toned, pianist Gabriel Guerrero is relaxed and totally locked into the rest of the rhythm section. Gertz has a knack for holding down the fort while interjecting provocative commentary. His solo is assured and melodically inventive. The Miles-ish title track (based on the chord changes of Cole Porter’s “I Love You”) features a fluent, optimistic solo by trumpeter Phil Grenadier. He’s a fascinating player. Entirely versed in the styles of his predecessors (Miles and Freddie Hubbard show up), he adds quirky, intelligent note choices that will leave you guessing — and impressed. Bergonzi continues the Miles thread with a finger busting solo that references Wayne Shorter, but is anything but a slavish imitation.

I’m assuming that “Outer Urge” pays homage to saxophonist Joe Henderson’s “Inner Urge,” but it’s less feverish. It starts with an unusual drum solo with bass accompaniment. Austin McMahon effectively and efficiently makes himself heard here, his playing a winning blend of concision and imagination. The heartfelt “For Gwen,” with its lyrical voicing for tenor and trumpet closes the album. Guerrero, Gertz and McMahon lead off with an elegant trio exposition. Grenadier joins, again adding an irrepressible lightness to the ensemble. Bergonzi brings more muscle to his solo, but balances it perfectly with the delicacy of the composition. Back to the engaging theme, and out. It would be a shame if Open Mind stays under the radar. It’s an album deserving of careful attention — challenging enough for listeners who like to dig into a project, but immediately accessible to anyone who just wants to hear an hour of superb contemporary jazz.

Remembering a consummate musician's musician

I first heard his song from the Ventures, like many others painstakingly forming their preliminary chords. “Walk, Don’t Run” was easy enough to learn to play, and so I mistakenly figured Johnny Smith was simple. But he was a consummate musician’s musician, who featured in orchestras conducted by such as Arturo Toscanini and Eugene Ormandy; spent years on staff at NBC where he had to perform everything from classical to pop to polkas; and formed a jazz group in the early 1950s that became a held-over attraction at Birdland, where even Charlie Parker himself would sit and appreciatively watch Smith tickle the strings.

Of a generation that included George Barnes and Les Paul, his bridge would cross over to such as Chet Atkins, whose version of “Walk Don’t Run,” which Johnny wrote in 1954, would be the match lit by the Ventures, though many like myself were unaware of its originator. Smith had come to solo prominence in 1952 when his rendition of the standard “Moonlight in Vermont” (on an album that also featured Stan Getz) became the No. 1 jazz album of the year. Two years later, Smith took the chord changes of “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” and overlaid the indelible melody of “Walk, Don’t Run.” In 1959, the Ventures would simplify it into the pop charts, riding the crest of an explosive popular interest in the electric guitar.

Though known for his biggest hit, the other songs on this album reveal Smith’s sense of chordal movement and flair for a spotlessly clean tone and melodic invention, an unhurried style that made it easy to see why he came up with his famous mantra. His is almost a pianistic approach; you can hear his considerable technique on “I’ll Remember April” and “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and he turns “Lullaby of Birdland” into a Bach-like etude. Having seemingly conquered all musical worlds available to him, tiring of touring and life in the hustle of the Big Apple, in 1958 Johnny went home to Colorado Springs to care for his daughter after his wife died, and opened a music store. There he primarily stayed for the next 55 years, until his passing on June 11, 2013, at the age of 91. Wish I could’ve walked into his shop to buy some strings and take another lesson.