Jazz

This week's Jazz CDs reviewed

JULIAN SIEGEL TRIO
Live at the Vortex (2 CDs) Basho****

Caught during a UK tour in 2007, this trio's flexibility and mutual responsiveness are remarkable. Among the great characteristics shared by bassist Greg Cohen, drummer Joey Baron and leader Siegel (whose exceptional tenor, clarinet and bass clarinet do much for the group's texture and colour) is a razor-sharp ability to pick up on found cues and ideas and take a performance in fresh directions in terms of mood, rhythm and how freely they handle the original material. Siegel's originals and tenor have some of the quirky wit, imagination and authority of Sonny Rollins (although Lovano might be a closer influence), Baron's musicality is stunning, and Cohen is brilliant. When they put their stamp, jointly and individually, on Siegel's Atlantic, Haunted Waltzand the tour de force Sandpit, as well as Bacharach's Alfie, it's jazz at close to its inventive best. www.bashorecords.com  RAY COMISKEY

RICHARD GALLIANO/ BRUSSELS JAZZ ORCHESTRA
Ten Years Ago Milan***
With Galliano and Bert Joris each contributing half the 10 orchestrations, what's perhaps most interesting about the great accordionist's encounter with the BBB is the successful integration of the instrument's chordal and linear attributes into the big-band sections. And though the idea is not new and the writing itself is not strikingly individual, it's done with impressive skill and faultless execution; there are fine performances of Galliano's excellent Teulada, Coloriage, Tango Pour Claude, Take Elevenand Taraf. However, in an album referencing traditional big-band jazz influences, French chanson, Argentinian tango and a touch of Middle Eastern exoticism, perhaps its most abiding and deeply felt characteristic is the melancholy charm suffusing Galliano's Giselleand the title track, both beautifully arranged by Joris, and Poème, composed and arranged by Galliano. www.milanrecords.com  RAY COMISKEY

GARY BURTON
Dreams So Real: Music of Carla Bley ECM***
This is another in ECM's specially priced Touchstone series. Documenting vibraphonist Gary Burton's mid-1970s quintet, it coincides with the short time that the then-emerging guitar of young Pat Metheny was in the group, completed by Mick Goodrick (guitar), Steve Swallow (electric bass) and Bob Moses (drums). Bley's compositions offer a mix of the challenging, in the mazy angularities of Ictus-Syndrome- Wrong Key Donkeyand Doctor; and the moody, in the sometimes Americana feel of the title track, Jesus Maria(a Burton feature), the gently undulating Vox Humana, and Intermission Music. The stellar group is beautifully balanced, both guitars are seamlessly integrated into the ensemble sound, Burton solos with a kind of rapt lyricism, and Metheny is often ear-catching. But it somehow burns on a low flame; the music is of its time and hasn't aged entirely well. www.musicconnection.org.uk  RAY COMISKEY