Dave Douglas: A Thousand Evenings (RCA Victor)
An extraordinary piece of musical plate tectonics, where jazz, classical, jewish klezmer, pop, mitteleuropa folk and free improv collide fruitfully, steered there by trumpeter/composer Douglas. This is the quartet, Charms of the Night Sky, completed by Mark Feldman (violin), Guy Klucevsek (accordion) and Greg Cohen (bass), with which this musical seismologist regularly shifts his artistic scenery. He's magisterial here, leading a band richly textured and so unified it's sometimes difficult to determine what's improvised, what's written. For programming, a preponderance of slow pieces wasn't the wisest, perhaps, but with such an imaginative, lyrical group whose virtuoso soloists are rarely exercised by technique alone, it's just a quibble.
Mary Coughlan Sings Billie Holiday: Evangeline (2 CDs)
Coughlan is no Billie Holiday, as her interpretations of God Bless The Child, Don't Explain - both written by Lady Day - and Strange Fruit unkindly reveal, nor can she invest For All We Know with the unbearable poignancy a shrunken-voiced, close-to-death Billie did. But overall she treats the material with respect for its definitive performances, connecting with it in a way that suggests more than nostalgia is involved. It's clearly shaped by pianist Peter O'Brien and trumpeter Rock Fox, both familiar with the source and part of a fine basic line-up which includes Jim Farley (alto/clarinet) and Myles Drennan (drums). And the band achieves something of the feel of the original, casually conceived small group 1930s sides that inspired it all.