JAZZ

Latest releases reviewed

MARC JOHNSON
Shades of JadeECM
*****

The title refers to the haunting tune Jade Visions by Scott LaFaro, one of bassist Johnson's predecessors in the Bill Evans Trio. The album itself is an eloquent testimony to Johnson's own maturity, depth and range as a player and composer. Weaving a musical web of delicacy are some of the most gifted and distinctive melodists around in Joe Lovano (tenor), John Scofield (guitar) and Eliane Elias (piano), with Joey Baron completing a flawlessly apposite rhythm section. Standouts include gorgeous trio performances of two Elias ballads, Snow and All Yours, with superb tenor and guitar on the title track and great rapport between tenor and piano on In 30 Hours, another fine Elias ballad. Johnson ends a lovely session bowing beautifully on an Armenian folk song, Don't Ask of Me, accompanied by organist Alain Mallet. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comiskey

DAVE BINNEY
Welcome to Life Mythology
****

Welcome to Life is Dave Binney (alto), Chris Potter (tenor), Craig Taborn (piano), Adam Rogers (guitar), Scott Colley (bass) and Brian Blade (drums) - a dream team even by New York standards, filled with arresting soloists, anchored on Colley's resonant bass and driven by Blade's brilliant drums. But the final ingredient is the sure hand of the leader. Binney composed all the material, ranging in mood from the elegaic Lisliel to the relative complexities of the long-lined Frez, on which he and Potter are exceptional. Particularly impressive is the way he deploys the soloists, like individual colours placed on a shrewdly conceived canvas, making the most of their character and enhancing the overall design. Almost Ellingtonian in its (different) way. With Potter replaced by Mark Turner, they're in Whelan's, Dublin tonight.

www.mythologyrecords.com  Ray Comiskey

PAUL MOTIAN
At the Village Vanguard Winter&Winter
*****

Reissue of a near-classic example of Motian's long-standing and highly influential trio with Joe Lovano and guitarist Bill Frisell, which catches them live in spellbindingly intuitive form a decade ago. Apart from a standard ballad, You Took the Words Right Out of My Heart, all the pieces bear the unmistakeable stamp of Motian's quirky compositions, ranging from the idiosyncratic, humorous The Owl of Cranston and the plaintive Folk Song for Rosie to the buoyant simplicity of Circle Dance. The trio's mutual engagement is astonishingly fluid, a free but not formless collective improvisation in which notions of soloist and leading voice are constantly changing and blurring. And all the while Motian redefines the role of drums with what can only be described as washes of colour. www.harmoniamundi.com

Ray Comiskey