Jazz

Woody Shaw: "Solid" (BMG Camden)

This budget price double-CD set may be one of the bargains of the year, since it contains two of the superb trumpeter's finest albums The Moontrane and Imagination, complete, with most of a third gem Solid added. All come from the Muse catalogue, the first dating from 1974, the others from 1986 and '87 respectively and show that, despite the chaos of his brief life, Shaw - whose influences included Debussy, Eric Dolphy, Gillespie and Davis - sometimes got his act together professionally. These albums were milestones in his career, owing as much to sympathetic colleagues like trombonist Steve Turre, pianists Kenny Barron and Kirk Lightsey and agile, malleable rhythm sections, as they do to the leader's intelligence. Ray Comiskey

Oscar Peterson Trio+One (Verve)

The "+One" is trumpeter Clark Terry, at the peak of his powers in this enjoyable mid-sixties joust with perhaps the Peterson trio, that telepathic unit completed by Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen. There's nothing profound here, unless it's the reminder that jazz can be fun as well as good - and that's not just a reference to Terry's hilarious pair of vocal blues parodies Mumbles and Incoherent Blues but also to the quartet's exhilarating groove. Virtually everything was done in one take; Terry simply came in, the Rolls Royce trio slipped into gear behind him and they had a ball. Their pleasure in playing permeates the music, with Blues For Smedley and Mack The Knife outstanding in a session without a weak track. Even the ballads work; I Want A Little Girl is one of Terry's best, because it lacks the cloying sweetness he could pour over a slow, romantic tune. Ray Comiskey

Humphrey Lyttelton: "The Parlophones Vols 3&4" (Calligraph)

Lyttelton's resolute, gradual and, to jazz Neanderthals, subversive evolution from traditional to mainstream is well covered in this late 1950s summation. The advent of Bruce Turner gave the "trad" band its finest soloist, amply demonstrated - despite a few glitches in track listings - on Volume Three. The band also evolved rhythmically until, with the arrival of pianist Ian Armit, the final piece in the 4/ 4 mainstream jigsaw was in place. By then Turner and Wally Fawkes had gone and the front line, one of the best in Britain at the time, was boosted by saxophonists Tony Coe, Jimmy Skidmore and Joe Temperley. This is the band that graces the final third of Volume Four, replacing the old, exuberant trad drive with a kind of elegant ebullience. But, whatever the idiom, there's more than mere nostalgia to commend them. Ray Comiskey