Martin Wind, Get It? (Laika). The quartet's feeling of controlled abandon, symbolized in the cover shot, is notable in the title tune inspired by James Brown. There's a sense of slight danger even in the stately treatment of Billy Strayhorn's "Isfahan" and Wind's atmospheric, blues-inflected "Rainy … [Read more...]

Johnny Mercer, This Time The Dream's On Me (Warner Bros). Producer-director Bruce Ricker does a masterly job of integrating new and old material into a thorough biography of the great lyricist. The story of Mercer's life and artistry melds film clips and recordings of Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, … [Read more...]

Nat Hentoff, At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years On The Jazz Scene (U of California Press). Hentoff is our leading avatar of the proposition that jazz is a living expression of the principles embedded in the US constitution, of which he is also a scholar. He does not deal in technical analysis of … [Read more...]

David Weiss & Point Of Departure, Snuck In (Sunnyside). Trumpeter Weiss's heart may be in the 1960s, but he and his young band operate very much in the present. His solo style is largely a bequest from the late Freddie Hubbard, with whom he worked closely as a player and arranger. His repertoire … [Read more...]

Esperanza Spalding, Chamber Music Society (Heads Up). The contrarian impulse is to briskly walk away from hype about the latest sensation du jour, but critical duty says, listen anyway. In Spalding's case, I'm glad I listened. She is an accomplished bassist with depth of tone, penetrating timbre and … [Read more...]

Joe Sardaro, Lost In The Stars (Catch My Drift). Last year, I mentioned in a review of Joe Sardaro's Protégé that the singer's 1986 vinyl album Lost In The Stars had never been reissued. Now, happily, it is on CD. Sardaro recruited high-level backing for his first recording; drummer Shelly Manne, … [Read more...]

Jimmy And Percy Heath, Jazz Master Class (Artists House). In 2004, the year before bassist Percy Heath died, he and his saxophonist/composer brother Jimmy appeared in John Snyder's master class series at New York University. A pair of DVDs captures them in several stunning duets, critiquing student … [Read more...]

Harvey Pekar, American Splendor: The Life And Times Of Harvey Pekar (Ballantine Books). Pekar, who died this month, mesmerized readers by transforming his ordinary life into comics for adults. Pekar wrote the stories. R. Crumb and a crew of other artists illustrated them to Pekar's specifications, … [Read more...]

Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Harvesting Semblances And Affinities (Pi). Coleman, an audacious alto saxophonist and composer, is as progressive as ever. Even subtler at melding disparate ingredients than in his first burst of M-Base renown in the 1980s, he declares in his liner essay, "...my … [Read more...]

Art Pepper, Unreleased Art, Vol V (Widow's Taste). Laurie Pepper continues to bring forth CDs of previously unreleased works by her husband. An alto saxophonist who hurled himself into his music, Pepper's astonishing energy did not flag in this concert recorded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1981, the … [Read more...]

Gail Pettis, Here in the Moment (OA2). Pettis's second album makes firm the promise of her first. To her deep contralto, clear diction and centered intonation she adds phrasing and tonal fillips that give her vocals identifiable personality. Among the indicators of her command, maturity and … [Read more...]

Coleman Hawkins, Live In '62 & '64 (Jazz Icons). Cameras caught the patriarch of the tenor saxophone (1904-1969) during a final period at the top of his game. The concert in Belgium suffers slightly at the hands, and sticks, of drummer Kansas Fields, who plays well but has difficulty containing his … [Read more...]

Jack Fuller, What Is Happening To News (Chicago). Concerned about the fragmentation, dilution and manipulation news? So is Fuller. The veteran journalist worked his way up from reporter to CEO of a media conglomerate, then stepped out of the profession. Now he is using his Pulitzer Prize-winning … [Read more...]

Joe Martin, Not By Chance (Anzic). At the outset, bassist Martin's album has the air of Downtown New York Generic, but the quality of the musicians and the playing soon kicks it into uniqueness. By the time they reach the ballad "A Dream," Martin, saxophonist Chris Potter, pianist Brad Mehldau and … [Read more...]

Julia Dollison, Kerry Marsh, Vertical Voices: The Music of Maria Schneider (artistShare). Dollison, the enchanting singer of 2005's Observatory, teams with her husband and fellow vocalist Marsh in recreations of orchestral works by Maria Schneider. With flawless matching of intonation and through … [Read more...]

Classic Columbia, Okeh And Vocalion Lester Young With Count Basie (1936-1940) (Mosaic). Young's lightness, buoyancy, rhythmic daring and harmonic subtlety on tenor saxophone helped free soloists from the arbitrary restrictions of time divisions. He told beautiful stories as he flew weightlessly … [Read more...]

Count Basie: Swingin' The Blues (Masters of American Music). Basie's rhythm section supported Lester Young in his greatest flights of invention. Drummer Jo Jones, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Walter Page and Basie were the heart of a band that brought the looseness and loping swing of Kansas … [Read more...]

Randall Sandke: Where The Light And The Dark Folks Meet (Scarecrow Press). The qualities of directness and original thinking in his trumpet playing are also evident in Sandke's prose. Full disclosure: I read this book in manuscript and wrote a blurb for it, to wit: "Randy Sandke's research and … [Read more...]

The Helen Merrill-Dick Katz Sessions (Mosaic). The bewitching singer and the late master of piano harmony and touch collaborated in 1965 and 1969 on two classic Milestone LPs. Mosaic's reissue of both on one CD is a genuine event. In addition to Merrill's incomparable singing and Katz's playing, we … [Read more...]