This week's jazz cds reviewed

MARC SINAN-JULIA HÜLSMANN

Fasil ECM**

With texts devised by a friend based on fragments of the Quran and Hadith, and ancient Persian poems, guitarist Marc Sinan sets out to tell in music the story of Aisha, the Prophet Mohammed’s favourite wife. His sextet includes singer Jelena Kuljic, with Lena Thies (viola) added for colour, and pianist Julia Hülsmann’s fine trio with Marc Muellbauer (bass) and Heinrich Köbberling (drums/percussion). But the new texts are leaden, and Hülsmann’s original music so pervasively solemn, that Kuljic’s delivery falls between singing and recitation; the attempted marriage of cultures finds no space to call its own. The booklet’s texts are in linear storytelling form and include five texts not on the CD, while for musical reasons the album is sequenced differently. The group’s obvious communal spirit, especially evidenced in the three free improvs, deserves better material.

PAUL MOTIAN

On Broadway Vol 5 Winter & Winter****

For the latest in his series of Broadway standards albums, Paul Motian reunited with Masabumi Kikuchi (piano) and recruited three new members. If two of them, Loren Stillman (alto) and Michaël Attias (alto/baritone), don't quite equal Potter, Konitz and Lovano from the drummer's previous groups, they're still a big plus. But the third, bassist Thomas Morgan, is a revelation. With Kikuchi shrewdly open harmonically and Motian's time so fluid, Morgan slots into this shifting, rubato landscape to the manner born. Mindful of that fluidity, Stillman and Attias keep their contributions simple and affectingly lyrical, knowing the trio will add the rest. And in the moving charm of such performances as I See Your Face Before Me, A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening, Just a Gigoloand Something I Dreamed Last Nightis the realisation that nobody else is handling standards quite like this. www.winterandwinter.com

YOUN SUN NAH

Voyage ACT***

Singing and acting are combined by Korean Youn Sun Nah in this collection of her originals and material by such as Tom Waits, Nat King Cole and Egberto Gismonti. In an intimate, wide-ranging recital, she is beautifully cosseted by guitarist Ulf Wakenius and bassist Lars Danielsson, with trumpeter Mathias Eick (alas, on only three tracks) and percussionist Xavier Desandre-Navarre on hand. Youn’s manner is breathily conversational, but her warm, full lower register and unforced higher one show there’s plenty of equipment available when required, while her phrasing and time are a joy. It’s a persuasive package, deployed with sensitivity, skill and nous. Youn’s six originals, simple and melodically effective, could have done with stronger lyrics, but she remains an accomplished, subtle performer whose interpretation starts, as it should, with the words. www.act music.com