Still Alive and Kickin' Down the Walls Hot Cup****

The division between jazz and country in American music has generally been every bit as stark and impermeable as the racial divide that created it. Both may have emerged from the same folk roots, and both value instrumental virtuosity, but where jazz took on the ambitions of the urban avant- garde, country has remained defiantly homespun and down- to-earth. On their follow-up to 2010's well-received Pretend It's the End of the World, saxophonist Bryan Murray and his quintet manage to square that circle again, applying the freedom and improvisational anarchy of contemporary jazz to the songs of Merle Haggard without losing the rawness and directness of the originals. Nor, thankfully, is there anything arch or ironic about it – Murray's regard for Haggard and his music is absolutely sincere. It's "down home" meets "downtown" in a hail of bullets, but nobody gets hurt. See bryanmurray.net.