Jeremy Steig, Flute Fever (International Phonograph)

The Rifftides campaign for a reissue of the 1963 debut recording of flutist Jeremy Steig and pianist Denny Zeitlin got underway with this observation in a 2005 post:

On Sonny Rollins’s “Oleo,” each of them solos with ferocious thrust, chutzpah, swing and—one of the most challenging accomplishments in jazz—a feeling of delirious freedom within the discipline of a harmonic structure.

Fifty years after it appeared, Flute Fever remains one of the finest albums of the second half of the twentieth century, regardless of genre. At last, it is a CD, but Columbia ceded the honor to someone else. Kudos to Jonathan Horwich and International Phonograph. The reproduction of sound, packaging and artwork is flawless. This is a basic repertoire item.

Christian McBride Trio, Out Here (Mack Avenue)

Bassist McBride was so accomplished so young, it’s natural that at 41 he is an elder statesman grooming emerging players. Pianist Christian Sands and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr., are the impressive young members of McBride’s new trio, working beautifully with him in all of the areas in which he excels; rhythmic power, melodic inventiveness and unity of purpose. Highlights: the bone-deep swing in Oscar Peterson’s “Easy Walker” and McBride’s “Ham Hocks and Cabbage” and arco playing of exceptional purity by McBride in Richard Rodgers’ “I Have Dreamed.” Unabashedly in the tradition of trios led by Peterson, Billy Taylor, Ray Brown and Jeff Hamilton, McBride meets the high standard they set.

Ivo Perelman, Matthew Shipp, Whit Dickey, Gerald Cleaver, Enigma (Leo Records)

Perelman, a Brazilian living in New York, is a tenor saxophone virtuoso who does not allow standard jazz operating procedure to dictate his approach. In other words, he plays free jazz. His frequent partner is pianist Matthew Shipp, whom the critic Neil Tesser has identified as Perelman’s “blood brother.” The two record together so often —I count 12 albums in the past two years—that keeping up with them could be a sub-specialty. Enigma finds Perelman and Shipp with no bassist and two drummers, Whit Dickey and Gerald Cleaver. Listeners open to this music penetrate thickets of ideas, emotions and internal rhythms. Rewards for attention and patience are intensity, drama, humor and stretches of surprising lyricism.

Thelonious Monk, Paris 1969 (Blue Note)

Dismiss claims that Monk was a burnt-out case after about 1965. There was already evidence to the contrary in the Black Lion recordings, his work with the Giants Of Jazz and the brilliance of his unexpected 1974 Carnegie Hall concert. Now, there is also this DVD assembled from film of a concert at the elegant Salle Pleyel. Monk still had his stalwart tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse. His new young sidemen on bass and drums had broken in nicely. Philly Joe Jones was a surprise guest on drums; the resulting version of “Nutty” is priceless. We don’t see Monk doing his bear dance, but he was in good spirits nonetheless, and he played three crystalline unaccompanied encores.

Terry Teachout, Duke: A Life Of Duke Ellington (Gotham)

Teachout takes readers as close as it may be possible to come to Ellington’s thought processes about his music, about himself and about other people. A charming deflector of inquiry into his compositional techniques, his opinions and his motivations, Ellington was his own most closely guarded secret. Teachout applies his formidable research and narrative skills to parallel stories: Ellington’s relationships with family, friends, sidemen, managers and the music establishment; and how he developed himself into the originator of works whose mysteries defy musicological analysis. Passages describing recordings are all but guaranteed to send serious listeners to their music collections. Thus, hearing the evidence can make reading this remarkable biography a long and rewarding experience.

Warren Wolf, Wolfgang (Mack Avenue)

In a succession of vibraphonists that began with Lionel Hampton and Red Norvo, Wolf has come into his own. His new album finds him with one rhythm section of veterans—pianist Benny Green, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash—and another of young musicians from his own quartet. He and the increasingly impressive pianist Aaron Diehl play duets on two pieces. With Wolf on marimba, the two defy categories in variations on the 19th century trumpet chops buster “The Carnival of Venice.” In “Wolfgang” and “Grand Central” (unrelated to the John Coltrane piece of that name) Wolf the composer writes straightforward melodic invention that is also a hallmark of his soloing. His improvisation on “Frankie and Johnny” is a bluesy joy.

David Friesen, Brilliant Heart (ITM Archives)

In this collection of chamber music improvised on original themes, bassist Friesen commemorates an adult son who died in 2009. His “Scotty” is an unaccompanied bass solo incisively intoned and infused with a deep sense of loss. In much of the rest of the album, the pleasure of discovery dominates as Friesen interacts with pianist Greg Goebel and drummer Charlie Doggett and, on some tracks, guitarist Larry Koonse. The piano trio piece “Purple Painting,” at once blissful and energetic, gets its title from the work by Scotty Friesen that serves as the CD cover. “Sailing” is a bracing counterpoint encounter among Friesen, Goebel and Koonse, “Painting The Blues” a heart felt meditation on the younger Friesen’s artistry.

Lester Young, Boston 1950 (Uptown)

If it has been too long since you’ve listened to Lester Young, say a couple of weeks, this collection of club performances could be just what you need. The tracks are from radio broadcasts when Young’s quintet was appearing at Boston’s Hi-Hat in the spring of 1950. He may not have been the Lester of the late 1930s Count Basie band, but the exuberance and ingenuity of his playing counter claims that after WWII he was a burnt-out case. Young was always capable of playing a phrase that could astonish the listener. Here, he does it frequently. His colleagues include Connie Kay on drums and two rising young pianists, Kenny Drew and Horace Silver.

Anita O’Day Live In Tokyo ’63 (Kayo Stereophonic)

The singer equals the heights she reached in her 1958 triumph at the Newport Jazz Festival. In this television broadcast there is no audience cheering her on, as at Newport, but O’Day shows that she needs no crowd to generate energy and enthusiasm. She has the backing of her pianist and musical director Bob Corwin and a superb big band of Japanese musicians led by Takao Ishizuka playing Buddy Bregman arrangments. Among the 15 songs, she reprises two of her Newport hits, “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “Tea for Two.” On the latter she jams with three horn players in a riotous exchange of high-speed phrases. This remarkable DVD preserves O’Day’s musicianship, impeccable timing, stage presence and charisma.

Gary Burton, Learning To Listen (Berklee Press)

At the outset of his autobiography, as he turns 70 Burton makes it official again (the first time was in 1994): he’s gay. The vibraphonist then delivers an entertaining, informative and well-written account of his career, returning occasionally but not obsessively to his gayness. He is even-handed about the difficulties and rewards of working with Stan Getz, full of admiration for Duke Ellington, generous but clear-eyed in discussing colleagues including Chick Corea and Pat Metheny. An invaluable chapter discusses the conscious and unconscious processes of making improvised music. Burton’s superb new quartet CD Guided Tour, with guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio Sanchez, is a fine companion to the book.

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock, Jack DeJohnette, Somewhere (ECM)

The first release in four years by Jarrett’s Standards Trio captures interaction among the pianist, bassist Peacock and drummer DeJohnette that is like the activity of one mind. Their exploration of Leonard Bernstein’s “Somewhere” melds into “Everywhere,” a mantra that builds hypnotic fascination. In the quirkiness of his fragmented first bars of “Between The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and his unaccompanied ruminations leading into “Solar,” Jarrett is as adventurous as in one of his celebrated solo concerts. Peacock and DeJohnette also have imposing solo moments, but in the end it’s the irresistible unity of the trio that inspires ecstatic response from the audience in Lucerne’s KKL hall.

Bill Potts, The Jazz Soul of Porgy & Bess (Fresh Sound)

In jazz, 1959 was a watershed, milestone, landmark (choose your cliché). Clichés embody truths; that’s how they become clichés. The truth is that this all-star recording of Porgy & Bess was one of the most important of the final year in a golden decade of jazz in New York. Potts’s arrangements are his most celebrated, for good reason. There is passion and commitment in the playing of the 19-piece ensemble and in solos by Art Farmer, Bill Evans, Phil Woods, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Harry Edison, Gene Quill, Bob Brookmeyer and Rod Levitt, among others. Remastering and CD packaging are consistent with the quality of the music.

Cécile McLorin Salvant, Woman Child (Mack Avenue)

In this November post, I observed that it was going to take a while to catch up with Cécile McLorin Salvant. It will take a while longer because she is moving fast, but her first CD portrays a singer who has emerged in her early twenties full of talent, versatility, taste and rare artistic judgment. With pianist Aaron Diehl’s trio, Salvant is unfailingly on target interpreting a collection of 12 dissimilar songs. She is equally affecting in her moody “Woman Child” the felicities of Fats Waller’s “Jitterbug Waltz” and the dramatic folk ballad “John Henry.” Diehl, bassist Rodney Whitaker and drummer Herlin Riley are ideal in support and solo.

Erroll Garner, No One Can Hear You Read (First Run Features)

This compact, well-made documentary leaves the viewer a puzzle: only 36 years after his death, how can memories of a stunningly original, universally admired pianist have grown so dim? Many, perhaps most, young listeners don’t know about Garner. The film’s abundant performance clips provide reasons that he should be an icon —his spontaneity, his irresistible swing, the witty deceptiveness of his introductions; the joy he took in playing, which was equal to the joy he gave. Ahmad Jamal, Woody Allen, Dick Hyman, George Avakian and Garner’s sister Ruth are among those who illuminate his life and career, but it’s Garner and his music that light up the screen.

Marc Myers, Why Jazz Happened (University of California Press)

A respected jazz critic and blogger with a masters degree in US history, Myers assesses the effects of social, political and business forces on the development of the music. He provides context in chapters on the influences of recording technology, radio, race relations, the G.I. Bill, the musicians union and rock culture, among other phenomena. Myers confines discussion of jazz’s first two decades to the introduction, but he is perceptive on the advent of bebop and on the relation of suburban spread to the burgeoning of jazz in Southern California. The title of his last chapter may be a note of optimism: Jazz Hangs On. This is a valuable study.

Ron Miles: Quiver (enja yellow bird)

Miles’s playing on “There Ain’t No Sweet Man Worth the Salt of My Tears” draws 21st century Denver and 1928 Chicago close. Some of his flurries of wildness on this album are as daring as the work of any modern trumpeter, but the Bix Beiderbecke lyricism in Miles’s soul extends into everything he plays. With just Bill Frisell’s guitar and Brian Blade’s drums, Miles may seem to be operating lean. No, there is richness in their harmonic inventiveness and rhythmic compatibility. The nine pieces are not officially a suite, but unity of conception runs through the performances. This is a satisfying album.