This week's jazz CDs reviewed

GEOFF EALES TRIO
Master Of The Game
Edition★★★★

Though he returned to jazz a decade ago after a long career in the studios and dance bands, Eales doesn't have the profile of other British pianists such as Liam Noble, John Taylor or Gwilym Simcock. So this CD with Chris Laurence (bass) and Martin France (drums) will be a revelation to some. The trio's democratic approach references Bill Evans, and Evans' impressionism is reflected in several of Eales' originals, but his influences are wider than that. At home playing inside or outside, he's a natural improviser concerned with details of colour, mood and developing the overall arc of a performance. This doesn't do justice, however, to the trio's drive on Iolo's Dance, the electrifying piano solo emerging from Awakening, the playful questing of Inner Child, the warm, muscular lyricism of Song for my Mother, or the unity of the multi-textured Magister Ludi. www.editionrecords.com

CY TOUFF & SANDY MOSSE
Tickle Toe
Delmark★★★

Mainstream isn't flavour of the moment. Even so, it's a surprise that this fine example of the idiom has taken almost 30 years to see the light of day. Individually, Touff and Mosse were alumni of big bands (Herman, Ferguson and Rich, among others) and played with Konitz and Russo in their Chicago hometown, so they brought a wealth of premier-league experience to this unpretentious date. Thanks also to a propulsively swinging local rhythm section, the single session simply clicked, with Touff's bass trumpet and Mosse's Lester Young-influenced tenor making an ideal tonal blend for two highly compatible soloists. On four standards, plus Young's Tickle Toe, Harry Edison's blues Centerpieceand Denzil Best's old bop anthem Allen's Alley, they produced an album which ranks alongside Touff's old 1950s date with another Lesterian, Richie Kamuca. www.delmark.com

LIAM NOBLE
Brubeck
Basho★★★★

Noble, with his longstanding collaborators Dave Whitford (bass) and Dave Wickins (drums), is on no nostalgic exercise in this tour of material written by, or associated with, Dave Brubeck. The percussive piano, for instance, is less an echo of Brubeck's attack than of Noble's concern, among other things, to emphasise the instrument's capacity for sound. He and his intuitively united trio have other ideas, at times stretching the material's boundaries to bursting point and beyond. Some Brubeck fans may look askance at the risk-taking, but on the superbly resolved Sixth Sense, Autumn In Washington Square, the unfettered dialogue of Blue Rondo A La Turk, and the lush yet tart exoticism of La Paloma Azul, it's arresting. And the brilliance, passion and wide-ranging sensibility Noble brings to bear on them remain rooted in a very contemporary perspective. www.jazzcds.co.uk