Joshua Redman: "Timeless Tales" (Warner Bros) An overdue new album from one of the finest young tenors in jazz reunites Redman with a major league rhythm section in Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier and Brian Blade. The result is probably Redman's best yet, a fluidly imaginative recasting, harmonically, melodically and, above all, rhythmically, of material from sources as disparate as Kern, Porter, Berlin and Rodgers on the one hand, and Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Prince and McCartney on the other. It's a sublime combination of investigation and interpretation, in which the whole is at least equal to the sum of its exceptional parts. That Redman and Mehldau, in particular, can take on such diversity of composition and remain instantly identifiable is a tribute to the strength of their artistic personalities. This could be one of the albums of the year. Ray Comiskey
Joe Harriott/John Mayer: "Indo-Jazz Fusions I & II" (Redial) Hard to believe that this fresh, vital and richly-textured fusion of jazz and Indian music is 30 years old, and that this is its first release on CD. The group, a double quintet - the jazz one led by altoist Harriott and including either Shake Keane or the great Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and flugelhorn, the Indian led by violinist and harpsichord player John Mayer, with sitar, tambura, tabla and flute - was a working band which flourished in the late 1960s, when the Beatles had helped to make things Indian fashionable. But this was no piece of esoteric chic. Under Mayer's guidance and with the willingness of musicians from both disciplines to cross musical boundaries, it became a superbly articulated whole, in which excellent solos emerge briefly and naturally from delightful ensemble expositions of the "thematic fragments" devised by Mayer. Ray Comiskey
Nicholas Payton: "Payton's Place" (Verve) Payton is one of the current crop of gifted young trumpeters with roots in bop, of whom Wynton Marsalis is now the grand old man and Roy Hargrove probably the best. Both Marsalis and Hargrove guest on two tracks each on Payton's latest, locking horns on The Three Trumpeteers. The overall ambience recalls the old Blue Note style of the early 1960s, but it's the iron-lipped brilliance is a mite too implacable, as if the manner has been caught but something of the spirit missed. Payton's basic quintet is chrome-bright and hard-edged, too, and though nobody plays with anything less than complete facility and the group has its moments, the contributions that linger come from the guests; they have something individual to say, and say it well - the rest is high-calibre craftsmanship. Ray Comiskey
