Jason Moran: Facing Left (Blue Note)
Moran's orchestral, sometimes overly percussive approach to the piano is a distinctive voice among the current crop of Blue Note's boundary stretchers. Here, with bassist Tarus Mateen and the life force drumming of the marvellous Nasheet Waits, he navigates a demandingly varied programme of originals, film music and obscure Ellingtonia, in which the trio's cohesion, his own intelligence and individual sense of line allow great liberties with harmony and rhythm. When it works it's a joy; Jaki Byard's Twelve, a personal take on the basics, is brilliant and Moran's Schillinger-based Fragments Of A Necklace has a warmth that defies mathematics. Overall, though, despite Moran's tonal grounding and exhilarating adventurousness, the abiding feel is of work in progress.
Buddy Rich: Buddy & Soul (Pacific Jazz)
Subtlety is not a word that comes readily to mind for this, Buddy Rich's tack before the prevailing winds of The Doors and late-1960s rock. But should visceral, in-your-face - if that's not a contradiction in terms - powerhouse big band grooving, propelled by a man who would make all rock drummers feel like incompetent wimps, be your thing, then voila! Rich's band is punch and precision personified. He also had good soloists, among them tenors Pat LaBarbera and Don Menza, altos Richie Cole and Joe Romano, and trumpeter Sal Marquez. The telling thing, though, is that despite the gold label arrangers he used, including Bill Holman, Shorty Rogers, Don Sebesky, Don Piestrup and Mike Mainieri, the rock-based approach tends to iron out their individuality.