Heather Masse And Dick Hyman: Lock My Heart (Red House)

With The Wailin’ Jennys and the Wayfaring Strangers and appearances on radio’s Prairie Home Companion, Heather Masse has attracted a following among folk and bluegrass fans. This album of duets with master pianist Dick Hyman discloses the jazz foundation that has long been evident in her singing. Their treatments of Strayhorn’s “A Flower is a Lovesome Thing” and Buddy Johnson’s “Since I Fell For You” are ballad perfection. In their delightful “I’m Gonna Lock My Heart and Throw Away the Key,” she manages to combine Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe. Hyman’s accompaniments and solos are reminders that this 86-year-old wonder is one of the most interesting pianists alive.

Miles Davis Quintet Live In Europe 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 2 (Columbia/Legacy)

This three-CD, one-DVD set finds the trumpeter fomenting even more dramatic change than usual. The first volume in the so-called bootleg series of Davis concert recordings found his primarily acoustic 1967 quintet already tending toward electronic music and rock. Saxophonist Wayne Shorter remains from that band. Here, the transition intensifies. Electric pianist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette accelerate the shift Davis initiated with In A Silent Way. The repertoire is redolent of Davis’s Bitches Brew period. We hear the headiness, excitement and—sometimes—the aimlessness of newfound freedom. The DVD’s superb sound and picture bring the band alive.

Bill Frisell, The Disfarmer Project (La Huit)

Belgian filmmaker Guillame Dero captures the eclectic guitarist Frisell, violinist Carrie Rodriguez, guitarist Greg Leisz and bassist Viktor Krauss in a live performance set to portraits by the 1950s Arkansas photographer Mike Disfarmer. Some of the music was on a 2009 CD mentioned in this Rifftides post. Hearing it in new versions with Disfarmer’s eccentric and vaguely disturbing photos looming over the band is an adventure. Watching interaction and reaction among the quartet increases the fascination. Frisell salts his original compositions with songs by Hank Williams, Arthur Crudup and Cliff Friend.

Wadada Leo Smith: Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform)

The trumpeter and composer’s four-disc work is a monument to Black Americans’ struggles for freedom. The names of the 19 movements summon up key episodes in the story, among them “Dred Scott,” “Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of Education” and “The Freedom Riders Ride.” With his free jazz quintet’s unfettered improvisation Smith blends skilled writing, including passages for a nine-piece ensemble of strings and winds. The tempers of the work range from tumult in “Dred Scott” to gauzy reflection in “Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964.” Titles and themes aside, the music, as music, is potent and satisfying.

Ben Webster and Joe Zawinul: Soulmates (Riverside OJC)

Long after Ben Webster became famous and when the pre-Weather Report Joe Zawinul was laboring as a sideman, the immigrant Austrian pianist and the seasoned tenor saxophonist became pals. In 1963 they made this album, a product of their friendship and a reminder of what a splendid mixing bowl for jazz New York was in those days. Philly Joe Jones is the drummer, Sam Jones and Richard Davis split the bass duties, Thad Jones plays cornet on half the numbers. The music is timeless and comforting. Soulmates is not a reissue. How long it will still be available is anybody’s guess.

Diana Krall: Glad Rag Doll (Verve)

Krall takes a side trip into the 1920s and shows a bit of thigh on the album cover. Evidently, that’s all it takes to get the music business stirred up and the tweets and sales figures flying. How’s the music? Not bad. On some tracks, she has fun. On others—well, how much uplift could anyone get from “Here Lies Love?” The harmonies, if not the lyric, of “Let it Rain” inspire animation in her voice. Glad Rag Doll won’t replace Live In Paris, but the collection is interesting, a bit odd and worth more than one hearing.

Johnny Griffin Live In France 1971 (Jazz Icons)

One of the greatest second-generation bebop tenor players, Griffin (1928-2008), was also one of the fastest. He is often remembered for speed and excitement , but here his ballad playing is an equal attraction, notably on his “When We Were One” and “Soft and Furry.” In a concert performance with Dizzy Gillespie sitting in on two pieces, and filming in a studio, the man known as The Little Giant is in superb form. His colleagues are veteran drummer Art Taylor, the young bassist Alby Cullaz and pianists Vince Benedetti and René Urtreger.

Ted Gioia: The Jazz Standards: A Guide To The Repertoire (Oxford)

In nearly 500 pages, Gioia covers 254 songs that he considers the core of the jazz repertoire. They include compositions by jazz musicians as well as standard songs. Duke Ellington, of course, fits both categories. In a typical essay of perhaps 500 words, Gioia discusses a song’s and its writer’s history, its musical form and construction and, often, its social and cultural significance. He also recommends important recordings of the pieces. One might quibble about tunes that are left out, but this book is both a valuable research tool and a fine read. That’s a rare and desirable combination.

Branford Marsalis, Four MFs Playin’ Tunes (Marsalis Music)

The Marsalis quartet achieves openness without abandoning harmonic guidelines, hipness without complex chord permutations. A saxophone soloist who manages to meld aggressiveness and wryness, Marsalis is at his peak here. The delight that he, pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and young drummer Justin Faulkner find in supporting and surprising one another is likely to also affect the listener. The tunes are by members of the band except for Thelonious Monk’s “Teo” and Richard Whiting’s “My Ideal,” the latter with a tenor solo that combines tenderness and wit. A highlight: Marsalis’s “Treat it Gentle,” recalling Sidney Bechet’s passion on soprano, but not his wide vibrato.

Ryan Truesdell, Centennial: Newly Discovered Works Of Gil Evans (artistShare)

Truesdell apprenticed with arranger and composer Maria Schneider, who apprenticed with Gil Evans. That makes him, in effect, Evans’ musical and spiritual grandson. He does his heritage proud, taking 10 previously unrecorded Evans arrangements from manuscript—or, in some cases, expanding Evans sketches—to performance by a superb collection of musicians. The scores go back as far as Evans’ Claude Thornhill period of the 1940s and up to 1971. This music is a reminder that 100 years after his birth and 24 following his death, Evans still shows the way. The sparkling cast of soloists includes Steve Wilson, Scott Robinson, Joe Locke and Luciana Souza.

Alan Broadbent Trio Live At Giannelli Square, Volume 2 (Chilly Bin)

Recorded in Los Angeles shortly before Broadbent transplanted himself to New York, Giannelli 2 is the equal of Volume 1. That is high praise. The pianist’s harmonic acuity, melodic invention, touch and rapport with bassist Putter Smith and drummer Kendall Kay made this one of the finest trios in jazz. They find freshness in “Yesterdays,” “You Don’t Know What Love Is” and a romp based on “Just Friends.” Broadbent’s compositions include a blues and a pure original called “Wandering Road,” but the album’s piece de resistance is his “Sing a Song of Dameron,” which does not imitate Tadd Dameron, but conjures the composer’s essence.

John Coltrane, Live In France, 1965 (Jazz Icons)

Television cameras captured Coltrane with his classic quartet months before it disbanded and he began the space-bound journey he was on when he died two years later. At the Juan-le Pins Jazz Festival in Antibes, Coltrane, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones accomplished a concentration of passion even greater than that in their studio recordings of “Naima,” “Ascension,” “Impressions” and “A Love Supreme.” Much of the Antibes “A Love Supreme” video is lost, but the DVD’s nearly 13 minutes of the performance capture a level of intensity no other group of musicians is likely to equal. David Liebman’s liner notes are invaluable.

The Complete Stanley Dance Felsted “Mainstream Jazz” Recordings 1958-1959 (Fresh Sound)

This nine-CD treasure chest contains dozens of the finest mainstream artists from a golden era. Stanley Dance, who applied the term mainstream to jazz, supervised the sessions for the British Felsted label. Johnny Hodges, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Rex Stewart, Buster Bailey, Jo Jones, Budd Johnson, Dicky Wells, Billy Strayhorn; they’re all here, along with superb half-forgotten musicians like saxophonist George Kelly, guitarist Dickie Thompson and drummer Earl Watkins. Among the supporting players are young lions of the fifties Ray Bryant, Kenny Burrell and Ray Brown. The package includes Hodges in Strayhorn’s brilliant album Cue For Saxophone. The booklet has all of Dance’s notes, updated.