JAZZ

Latest releases reviewed

MARK MURPHY
Bop For Miles HighNote
****

This live date from the early 1990s catches the singer in full splendour at a concert in Vienna with a highly competent local rhythm section. Most of the material has Milesian associations: All Blues is archetypal Murphy, floating adventurously over the time, and there are arresting excursions on Summertime, Bye Bye Blackbird, On Green Dolphin Street and My Ship, all of which nod knowingly at Davis's versions. But there are other sources of inspiration, including a stunning version of Mingus's Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, with words by Joni Mitchell, Parker's Mood, with the King Pleasure lyrics, and Farmer's Market, which uses Annie Ross's vocalisation of Wardell Gray's tenor solo. Murphy's an acquired taste, but he's brilliant here. www.harmoniamundi.com

Ray Comiskey

STEVE SWALLOW/OHAD TALMOR
L'histoire du Clochard/The Bum's Tale Palmetto
****

Modeled on Stravinsky's Soldier's Tale and using a similar but not identical instrumentation – trumpet, tenor, trombone, clarinet, violin and bass – this is music which persuasively creates its own universe. Composed by bassist Swallow but radically re-assessed and arranged by Talmor, who plays tenor, it takes a kind of miniaturised, quasi-symphonic approach to each of the seven pieces. Talmor rings the changes on colour and counterpoint, mood and material, always concerned to frame the soloists and keep the musical discourse going somewhere. The voicings he draws from the little ensemble are a constant, delightful surprise, often like a touch of vinegar in the cocktails, never a cold exercise or a stranger to humour, and music like no other from a jazz milieu. www.palmetto-records.com

Ray Comiskey

BENNY GOLSON
Terminal 1 Concord Jazz
****

Veteran tenor Golson is a shrewd judge of getting the best out of a group, and his subtle stamp is all over this fine example of latter-day bop. Leading a capable, compatible quintet with Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Mike LeDonne (piano), Buster Williams (bass) and Carl Allen (drums), he gives them plenty of meat to chew on. Among Golson perennials like Killer Joe, Blues March and Touch Me Lightly, he offers attractive newer pieces – a yearning Park Avenue Petite, an ingratiating, calypso-like Caribbean
Drifting and the title track – with Brubeck's gorgeous In Your Own Sweet Way. There's a couple of, given the context, surprising oldies in Sweet Georgia Brown and Cherry, but everything has the crisply together feel of a band on song and in form. musiconnection@aol.com

Ray Comiskey