Latest releases reviewed

JOE LOVANO
Streams of Expression
Blue Note
*****

Superb writing and playing, mostly by Lovano's 13-piece band, distinguish this masterly album. Two suites, one by Lovano, the other Gunther Schuller's brilliantly creative response to the Birth of The Cool's Moon Dreams, Move and Boplicity, simultaneously look back and stay resolutely contemporary. The forms of the past are refreshed by current freedoms, notably in the balance achieved by Lovano's writing in the title suite, where the full deployment of soloists within his structures is so varied, imaginative and free. And Schuller's revision of the old charts, linked by new interludes, is sheer beauty; shapely new bottles for old wine. Besides Lovano on tenor, alto clarinet and Autochrome (two joined sopranos), soloists include Tim Hagans (trumpet), reedmen Steve Slagle, George Garzone, Ralph Lalama and Gary Smulyan, and the late John Hicks (piano). One of the albums of the year.

ROBERTO MAGRIS EUROPLANE/ HERB GELLER
Il bello del jazz
Soul Note
****

Pianist Magris, in his Europlane incarnation, has a real talent for getting the creative juices flowing, even in the venerable bop/mainstream idiom. He does it this time with Herb Geller. Backed by a fine rhythm section which includes Rudi Engel (bass) and regular drummer Gabriele Centis, the veteran American altoist is in splendid form. On a decidedly unhackneyed programme of originals by Geller, Magris, Benny Carter and Al Cohn, and seldom played, even obscure, pieces like A New Town Is a Blue Town (a nice use of a blues base), Here I'll Stay, Some Other Spring and Sondheim's Pretty Woman, Geller lays down some of the best alto he's recorded in years. A good guitarist, Darko Jurkovic, is on four tracks, but it's the alto and that fine rhythm section that really stirs the pot. http://uk.hmboutique.com

ERIC VLOIEMANS
Summersaukt
Challenge
****

Those with a taste for the unusual should find this new trio CD from the gifted Dutch trumpeter a delightful surprise. Leading guitarist Anton Goudsmit and pianist Harman Franje, Vloiemans takes them through a diverse programme of chamber music. Tango, Brazilian dance, a touch of the circus, a Caribbean tinge, and a march with a difference add up to a repertoire full of charm. It's witty, playful and impeccably performed, but underlying the good humour and melodic grace of the music is a much more complex emotional climate, with a melancholy sometimes close to sombre. In this it evokes the kind of many-layered moods of, say, films like Fellini's La Strada, Amarcord and I Vitelloni, but on a more intimate scale, as befits such a perfectly balanced trio. Lovely. www.musicconnection.org.uk