The latest releases reviewed

VIJAY IYER Simulated Progress Pi ****

Acclaimed pianist and composer Iyer's collective approach to jazz is exemplified in Fieldwork, his trio with Steve Lehman (alto/soprano) and Elliot Humberto Kavee (drums). It's polyrhthmic (Iyer has studied Carnatic rhythms of southern India) and, while it doesn't eschew harmony, its structures are not rigid and considerable freedom arises within and without its parameters. Yet while the distinction between the written and the improvised can be elusive, there's a definite dramatic arc to each performance. In itself this is a tribute to the unity of the collective inspiration at work, where even solos become, in essence, group improvisations fired with a percussive, blistering emotional freight. It's complex, challenging, quite unlike anything else around at the moment, and certain to divide audiences. www.pirecordings.com

ALDO ROMANO/LOUIS SCLAVIS/ HENRI TEXIER African Flashback Label Bleu ****

Inspired by the photographs of Guy Le Querrec, the drums-clarinet/soprano-bass trio of Romano, Sclavis and Texier have come up with a range of musical response encompassing everything from lyric beauty and playfulness to the satirical and sardonic. En route, they show they can swing mightily and solo imaginatively, mixing sensitive rubato playing with a couple of free performances on which Sclavis, in particular, demonstrates an almost demonic intensity. Overall, however, it's the lyric charm of the trio's work which dominates - that and the sense that this is a group whose chemistry is such they should record together more often. A handsome booklet of Le Querrec's African pictures, going back to the 1960s, comes with the CD. www.musicconnection. org.uk

NIK BÄRTSCH'S RONIN STOA ECM ***

Ronin, the quintet of composer and pianist Bärtsch, draws its name from Japan's samurai warriors. Llike them, it's beholden to no single master - except the leader. Its musical references are minimalist and ritualist, its philosophical ones oriental. There's little harmony and hardly any improvisation. It's essentially a group music, mostly through-composed, where the detail and drama are in subtly altered polyrhythmic repetition and sparing but effective use of the limited tonal colours available to the piano/fender rhodes-drums-percussion-bass-clarinets lineup. It's fascinating, superbly played (this is a real working band) and rather special if you're drawn to zen-like trance and quasi-surrender of the intellect. I'm not. www.musicconection.org.uk