Jazz

Latest CD releases reviewed

MILES DAVIS
Kind of Blue Columbia (2 CDs/1 DVD) *****

This year Kind of Blueturns 50 and is almost out of copyright, and this probably represents Sony's last stirring of the bestsellers pot. To the last, remastered and speed- corrected "definitive" 1997 reissue have been added some studio chatter and breakdowns, reminders that even the greats are fallible. The second CD collects the only other studio recording by the Davis-Coltrane-Adderley-Evans-Chambers- Cobb sextet (five tracks first issued piecemeal by CBS) and a fine 1960 live quintet version of So What. That's a bonus, but most interest probably surrounds the DVD, where various jazz luminaries discuss Davis and Kind of Blue,with Dave Liebman, Herbie Hancock and the sextet's only survivor, Jimmy Cobb, particularly lucid and illuminating. The DVD finishes with the 1959 TV programme featuring the Davis quintet, with a band arranged and conducted by Gil Evans.

DON CHERRY/NANA VASCONCELOS/COLLIN WALCOTT

The Codona Trilogy

(3 CDs)

Uneven, perhaps, particularly Codona 2 and to a lesser extent Codona 3, but the albums made by this trio between 1978 and 1982 were unique in their marriage of jazz and ethnic music from all over the world. Instruments such as Walcott's sitar, sanza, tabla and hammered dulcimer, trumpeter Cherry's doussan'gouni and melodica, and Vasconcelos's berimbau, cuica and talking drum, gave them access to soundscapes untapped by other jazz groups. Cherry, Vasconcelos and Walcott were also astonishingly gifted players, open-minded and curious, who gelled in a rare manner. The first album remains the most engaging, especially the Indian- evocative Like That of Sky, the spontaneously devised Codona, and the chant-like Mumakata. There are treasures elsewhere, notably Malinyeand Again and Again, Again(on Codona 2) and Goshakabuchiand Travel By Night(on Codona 3). www.musicconnection.org.uk

RYAN QUIGLEY
Laphroaig-ian Slip RQM ***

Derry-born, Glasgow-raised Quigley is an exhilarating throwback to Lee Morgan and the hard-bop heyday. The trumpeter's sextet, with Laura Macdonald (alto), Paul Booth (tenor) and a powerhouse Steve Hamilton-Mario Caribé-Alyn Cosker rhythm section, has the skill and imagination to echo The Messengers and more. Most of all, it has the boundless energy, musical knowledge and joie de vivre the idiom calls for. Quigley is an exceptional player, with a big, full sound, superb phrasing and commanding presence. He also writes and arranges well for the band, whose crisp, buoyant playing of the uptempo Feck, the Horace Silver-ish Buzzy Beeand the Laphroaig-ian Slip, and its handling of the artful nod to All Blues, Duck Egg Blue, belies its pickup nature. This group would leave any of its contemporary hard boppers trailing. www.ryanquigley.co.uk