Jackie McLean: A Fickle Sonance (Blue Note)
First time on CD here for one of altoist Jackie McLean's best straight-ahead albums from his groundbreaking years at Blue Note, which finds him poised inventively between the old and the new. He still sounds marvellous - passionate, lyrical, with that expressively vocalised tone and generally well-resolved solo lines - in the process inspiring trumpeter Tommy Turrentine to some of his finest recorded work. Both he and Turrentine are also pushed by a rhythm section capable of prodding the most recalcitrant soloist to life - Sonny Clark, whose beautifully focused piano solos are a delight, bassist Butch Warren and drummer Billy Higgins. Excellent.
Branford Marsalis: Contemporary Jazz (Columbia)
Marsalis is such a fluent saxophonist that it seems he can do anything he puts his mind and abundant technique to. And there's the rub. Where's the soul? On this new release by his working group - pianist Joey Calderazzo, Eric Revis (bass), the wonderful Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums) - he seems intent on covering all bases. There's Rollins-ish fun on Cheek To Cheek, some tender ballads, occasional forays into freedom, hints of Coltrane and Henderson, a self-conscious bow to Mingus on Countronious Rex. It's all impressively adept but, at the intersection where personality should impose itself on complexity, anonymous: underlining a dilemma behind the title.