Jazz

Mark Turner: "In This World" (Warner Bros)

Turner, who will be in Cork this weekend, is unique among the current crop of young tenor saxophonists in that he has forged a remarkably personal style out of the influence of another very individual tenor, the late Warne Marsh. Like Marsh, he's an unshowy player; there are no gratuitous flourishes. But he is a brilliant improviser, with a harmonic and rhythmic sense very much his own, a virtuoso technique and the judgment to use his gifts well. On this superb album, recorded in June, he stamps his personality over material as disparate the bare harmonic bones of one of his originals, Mesa, Duke Pearson's delightful ballad, You Know I Care, and Lennie Groove, Turner's take on Lennie Tristano's Lennie's Pennies, itself a take on Pennies From Heaven. By Ray Comiskey

Tolvan Big Band: "Plays the music of Helge Albin" (Naxos)

Among the latest batch of releases on this budget label is a delightful surprise - a little-known big band that must be among the best in jazz at the moment. Swedish and led by altoist Albin, it combines punch and precision with something of the looseness of a small group - no minor feat when the complexity of Albin's scores for the orchestra is taken into consideration. And in Albin, pianist Jorgen Emborg, soprano Cennet Jonsson, tenor Inge Peterson, trombonist Vincent Nilsson and, above all, the marvellous trumpet and flugelhorn player, Peter Asplund, it has soloists fit to grace any group. If the leader's compositions are less striking than what he does with them, he is a richly imaginative arranger. By Ray Comiskey

Russell Malone: "Sweet Georgia Peach" (Impulse!)

Malone is the guitarist who was so impressive here recently with Diana Krall. A lovely player with a gorgeous tone and the technique to go with it, he leads, on this album, made last February, a heavyweight quartet completed by Kenny Barron, Ron Carter and Lewis Nash, with an additional percussionist on two tracks. The material is mostly jazz originals - by himself, Carter, Monk and Thad Jones - spiced with everything from the traditional to relatively contemporary pop, in an engagingly eclectic choice. There's much to enjoy. Malone is as ingratiating a soloist as ever, filling his lines with a very savoury melodic grace and caressing everything with that golden tone. It's intelligent music, polished, poised and precise, but rather like having a sensible guest with impeccable manners in the house; someone to bump against the furniture occasionally would be a relief. By Ray Comiskey