John Stowell, Swan Tones, Volume 1 (Soloway). One of the pleasures of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival last month was hearing the guitarist John Stowell in several contexts including concerts, workshops and jam sessions. A free spirit, Stowell lives in Portland, Oregon, but mostly makes his living on the road. The road takes him to Europe, Asia and all parts of the United States. He paused long enough in Portland to record this solo album on a new guitar called, because of its long neck, The Swan. Soloway describes this session as a “remarkable spontaneous performance.” Indeed it is. Stowell invents new melodies and variations based for the most part on songbook standards or jazz classics. Part of the fun of hearing them is identifying those songs. The title of “John The Giant” is bit of a giveaway. Others, “Will We Be One?” and “Ginger’s Dance,” for instance, may require finely tuned ears. Tune your ears and relax.

Bill Mays Trio Live At WVIA (Bill Mays Music). In their years as one of the few firmly established working trios in the upper ranks of jazz, pianist Mays, bassist Martin Wind and drummer Matt Wilson have developed uncanny empathy. Here, Mays largely concentrates on his compositions. He makes an exception with an adventurous version of “Darn That Dream.” From time to time, he goes outside by going inside the piano, using the strings as a harp. Wilson’s ingenuity with rhythm and unusual percussion instruments and Wind’s virtuosity, particularly with the bow, are on full display. Video and sound quality are first rate in this program played for an audience in a Pennsylvania television studio. This is an instance of a musician guiding his own business interests by issuing a DVD without middlemen.

Terence M. Ripmaster, Willis Conover: Broadcasting Jazz To The World (iUniverse).

Rifftides readers may remember a series of postings about Conover that began with this one. Through his Voice Of America broadcasts, Conover practiced cultural diplomacy that made friends for the United States during one of the most perilous periods of its existence, the Cold War. He accomplished his mission without politics, with dignity, with understatement and taste. His country rewarded him with ingratitude and disregard. Ripmaster’s biography, though uneven and in need of editing attention, provides valuable information about Conover’s career and the esteem he generated around the world for jazz and America. At a time when the administration is working to downgrade the VOA’s English language broadcasting capability, the Conover story underlines how badly the US needs a neutral instrument of foreign policy to create good will around the world.

The Rifftides archives contain a number of postings and comments about Conover, including the effort to win him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Go to the Search box in the upper right and enter “Conover.”

Tierney Sutton Band: On The Other Side (Telarc). The title is a phrase from Harold Arlen’s and Ted Koehler’s “Get Happy.” Sutton and her band, one of the most tightly integrated small groups at work today, contrast the song’s sunny lyrics with a deliberate pace and a minor-key setting. The result is the unlikely combination of a sense of irony with the song’s essential optimism. As performed and programmed by Sutton and the band, the album’s eleven classic standard songs comprise a suite that constitutes a meditation on happiness or, in three cases, its bittersweet opposite. Sutton’s “You Are My Sunshine” is the most moving version I have heard since Sheila Jordan’s 1962 recording with George Russell. Jack Sheldon’s two guest appearances include a gorgeous trumpet solo on “Glad To Be Unhappy,” and inspired singing and playing on “I Want To Be Happy.”

Steve Kuhn Trio: Live At Birdland (Blue Note). The veteran pianist recreates the trio he led twenty years ago with bassist Ron Carter and drummer Al Foster. Deeply admired, always in demand, but never given the recognition his talent warrants, Kuhn is playing with greater depth and emotional charge than ever. It is good to see him get the exposure that comes with a release on a major label and good to hear him confident and assured with the fine support of Carter and Foster and an enthusiastic audience.

Larry Willis: The Big Push (High Note). Al Foster is also on drums here, fully integrated into a superb trio with pianist Willis and bassist Buster Williams. Willis’s desirability as a sideman has kept him busy since the 1960s with leaders as varied as Hugh Masakela, Cannonball Adderley, Carla Bley, David “Fathead” Newman, Roy Hargrove and Blood, Sweat and Tears. The past few years, he has been stepping out more often as a featured soloist. This CD, a balanced mix of familiar and original pieces, is among his best work, with a gorgeous treatment of Burton Lane’s “Everything I Have Is Yours.”

Dizzy Gillespie: Dizzy’s Dream Band (Fox Lorber). This 1982 concert at Lincoln Center is a basic repertoire item for any collector of jazz DVDs. The sidemen and women in the specially assembled big band included Gillespie alumni from four decades, among them Jimmy Heath, Milt Jackson and John Lewis, with guest appearances by Max Roach and Gerry Mulligan. Dizzy was in high spirits and top playing form.

Alec Wilder: American Popular Song (Oxford). I have referred to this book so often over the years in articles, reviews and my own books that it makes sense to recommend it here. Wilder, with the indispensable assistance of James T. Maher, created an essential critical guide to the greatest songs and songwriters of the classic era of popular music. His opinions are strong and occasionally wrongheaded, but his overall grasp of what makes a good song remains unequaled. The one important songwriter whose work is not evaluated in the book is Alec Wilder. As Gene Lees has suggested, this is a book to be not merely read, but studied.

John Gross, Dave Frishberg, Charlie Doggett, Strange Feeling (Diatic Records). Gross, the outside tenor saxophonist; Frishberg, the inside pianist; and Doggett, the adaptable young drummer, meet on the common ground of a brilliantly assembled repertoire. The pieces are by Ellington, Strayhorn, Monk, Cohn, Davis, Brookmeyer and McFarland. Gross is calm in his delivery of solos that burn with convincing ideas. Frishberg is a foil for Gross’s daring excursions and a soloist of forthrightness, whimsy and a powerful left hand. This one is a sleeper.

Fats Waller, If you Got to Ask, You Ain’t Got It (Bluebird/Legacy). This is not a comprehensive Waller set, but a well chosen three-disc survey of the stride pianist whose song writing, singing and irrepressible personality made him an American favorite son in the 1930s and early ’40s. Even listeners who have the seventeen CDs Bluebird released toward the end of the last century will want this box because of the 98-page booklet. The photographs, the introduction by producer Orrin Keepnews and the masterly notes by Dan Morgenstern make it one of the best studies of Waller. The music, from 1926 (“St. Louis Blues”) to 1942 (“Jitterbug Waltz”) is sublime.

Paul Carlon Octet, Other Tongues (Deep Tone). From Red Norvo to James Moody, Ray Charles, Rod Levitt, Gil Evans, Lee Konitz and Bill Kirchner, I’m a sucker for medium-sized ensembles supported by resourceful writing. To the list add this octet of New Yorkers led by saxophonist and flutist Carlon. The orientation is Latin, the arranging at once economical and adventurous. Billy Strayhorn’s “Smada” becomes a danzón, Emily Dickinson’s poem “A Certain Slant of Light” inspires a pointillist reverie, “Boogie Down Broder” a rambunctious trombone fiesta. And there’s this encouraging disclaimer: “NO jazz musicians were harmed in the manufacture of this recording.”

Amalia Rodrigues: The Spirit of Fado (MVD World Music Talents). Rodrigues was the leading interpreter of fado, the moody music that expresses Portugal’s national preoccupation with fate. In fado at its best there is a commonality with jazz in the give-and-take among the perfomer and the guitar accompanists. Rodrigues could be as moving as Billie Holiday or Edith Piaf. In the form of a documentary, the film traces her career to her death in 1999 at age 79. The logy script does not diminish the glories of Rodrigues’ singing. The menu gives the viewer the option of isolating her performances from the pompous narration.

Louis Armstrong, Satchmo: My Life In New Orleans (Da Capo). A friend asked me recently, “What’s the best book about Louis Armstrong?” It may turn out to be the one Terry Teachout is writing, I said. I told him about Armstrong biographies by Gary Giddins, Laurence Bergreen, James Lincoln Collier, Max Jones-John Chilton and others, all with their strengths. But I suggested that if he had not read Armstrong’s own account of his youth, that would be the place to start. This modest little autobiography is honest, conversational and true to the man’s style as one of the positive, uplifting figures of our time.

Steve Turre, Steve Turre, Keep Searchin’ (High Note). The prolific trombonist in the J.J. Johnson tradition in yet another stimulating collection. He features two brilliant soloists, vibraharpist Stefon Harris and pianist Xavier Davis, and the fine drummer Dion Parson. Gerald Cannon and Peter Washington trade bass duties. Turre’s “Reconciliation” with its satisfying harmonic resolution, is a highlight, and he proves thatin the hands of an inventive player, there is always room for one more “My Funny Valentine.”

Kristin Korb, Why Can’t You Behave (Double K). Korb sings even better than on her previous CD and does it while playing the bass superbly. The Ray Brown protégé’s power and note choices would make the late master proud. Her treatment of Cole Porter’s title tune is appropriately wry and saucy, her minor key approach to “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” deep and reflective, with a penetratingly bluesy bass solo. Llew Matthews is Korb’s spare, harmonically resourceful pianist, Steve Barnes her discreet drummer. Trombonist Andy Martin and guitarist Larry Koonse shine as guest soloists.

Lee Wiley, West Of The Moon (Mosaic). One of the most tasteful, distinctive and emotionally profound singers of the 1930s and ’40s, Wiley was less active in the ’50s. By the time she died in 1975, she was all but forgotten by the public. Her admirers never forgot her, though. Fortunately, one of them is Mosaic’s Michael Cuscuna, who saw to the reissue of this 1956 masterpiece. Wiley’s collaboration with arranger Ralph Burns came fairly late in her career, but it’s one of her best albums. There are no more effective versions than Wiley’s of “This is New” and “Can’t Get Out of This Mood.”

Rufus Reid, Live In Vienna (MVD Visual). With Austrian pianist Fritz Pauer and fellow American John Hollenbeck on drums, Reid steps into the role of leader in this concert at the Vienna club Porgy And Bess. One of the most experienced and dependable sidemen in jazz, Reid demonstrates the musical wisdom and taste he has accumulated in decades with Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis and Freddie Hubbard, among others. Pauer, one of Europe’s best jazz musicians, is likely to be a revelation to listeners elsewhere. Hollenbeck’s balance of strength, speed and delicacy is on full display. Sound and visual quality are top notch. It is instructive to watch Reid use eye movements to cue his colleagues in this set of satisying music.

One More: The Summary, Music of Thad Jones, Vol. 2 (IPO). To name the players is to indicate the quality of this project: Eddie Daniels, Richard Davis, Benny Golson, Hank Jones, James Moody, John Mosca, Jimmy Owens, Kenny Washington and Frank Wess. Assembling all-stars is no guarantee of success, but most of these men worked with Jones in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, love his music and deeply understand it. They give “Little Pixie,” “Three and One,” six other Jones compositions and Jerome Richardson’s “Groove Merchant” everything they’ve got. They’ve got plenty, and it is as much in evidence here as it was in Volume 1 with a slightly different cast.

Ruth Naomi Floyd, Root to the Fruit (Contour). Ms. Floyd is a Philadelphia church singer whose jazz connections and finely tuned musicianship are as organic to her art as are her Christian convictions. In her fifth album, she leads ten musicians including saxophonist Gary Thomas, drummer Ralph Peterson, bassist Tyrone Brown and the incredible flutist James Newton. Songs like “Mere Breath” and “The Bottle of Tears” disclose her as a solid composer and lyricist whose work holds up well in the company of pieces by Randy Weston, Mary Lou Williams and Antonín Dvořák. The control, phrasing and inflections of her creamy mezzo-soprano voice make Ms. Floyd one of the most compelling singers of the day, regardless of idiom.