Latest releases reviewed

BOBBY WELLINS When the Sun Comes Out Trio Records *****

Caught live at a jazz festival last summer, this is the quartet featuring the great tenor, Bobby Wellins "firing on all cylinders," as the bassist Andy Cleyndert put it. Wellins was in sublime form, and the others - Cleyndert, Mark Edwards (piano) and a force-of-nature Spike Wells (drums) - were up for it, too. A few blues, Monk's Mood and some imaginatively treated standards, including hugely satisfying outings on Mad About the Boy and When You Wish Upon a Star, comprised the unremarkable repertoire. The rest is down to that special feeling when a band is collectively on song; as Miles Davis said years ago, it's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. Hard to argue with that. Wouldn't want to, anyway. www.triorecords.co.uk

Ray Comiskey

CLAUDE WILLIAMSON The Complete 1954-1955 Kenton Presents Sessions Fresh Sound  *****

This is prime, archetypal bop piano from a time when the idiom was still the movement in jazz, by one of its finest, if somewhat underrated, players. Williamson was straight out of Bud Powell. A virtuoso and a brilliant improviser, he could solo coherently even at murderously fast tempos and nourish his creative juices on the Great American Song Book, producing his own surprises. Helping him generate enormous swing in a magisterial demonstration of the bop trio format are the bass-drums teams of Curtis Counce/ Stan Levey, Max Bennett/Stan Levey and Buddy Clark/Larry Bunker. Hard to pick the best, because Williamson and his companions are so remarkably consistent - and so good you wish the tracks were longer. www.freshsoundrecords.com

Ray Comiskey

Composer and orchestrator Branker doesn't play on this fine album, but his writing gives it distinction and affords the excellent sextet he has assembled opportunities to add to its character. Antonio Hart (alto/soprano), Ralph Bowen (tenor/soprano), Clifford Adams (trombone) and the Jonny King-John Benitez-Ralph Peterson rhythm section respond beautifully to the settings he devises. Branker has imagination, good judgement, a taste for the modal (JC's Passion, for example, is a brilliant reworking of So What and Impressions) and, rhythmically, flavours his jazz sensibility with Caribbean, Brazilian and African elements. And in Bowen, King, Hart and Adams he has superior soloists season the mix. Nothing outre here; just excellent craftsmanship and the right balance of freedom and form. www.sonsofsound.com

Ray Comiskey