JAZZ

Ray Comiskeychecks out Richard Galliano among this week's trio.

JOBIC LE MASSON

HILL

Enja

***

Le Masson is little known outside his native France, but he's a talented pianist leading a very tight, cohesive working trio with Peter Giron (bass) and John Betsch (drums). As a composer (he wrote all the material here except one) and improviser, Le Masson shows a penchant for odd intervals, harmonic quirks and rhythmic displacement. This marks him as a Monk fan, which also implies an Ellington connection. And the clever Evidence to the Contraryand Monk Mediumare dedicated to Monk.

But Le Masson has alchemised it all to suggest that his influences have liberated his own self-expression. He's no clone, an impression reinforced by the fact that the trio are a highly interactive democracy along the lines originally mapped by Bill Evans. It's an approach heard at its best on the intriguing flexibility of No One, Dottedand the trio's authoritative handling of Monk's own Bemsha Swing.

www.enjarecords.com

RAY COMISKEY

RICHARD GALLIANO

Love Day

Milan

Leading a mouth-watering line-up of Charlie Haden (bass), Mino Cinelu (percussion) and Gonzalo Rubalcaba (piano), Galliano, on accordion, delivers the expected delicacy, melancholy charm and virtuosity. But the real meat here comes from Rubalcaba, whose sensitivity as an accompanist and effusive imagination as a soloist add a vital spark to what is, at times, an almost too-relaxed gathering of friends bathed in mutual admiration.

His rapport with Galliano, especially, is remarkable. They duet to great effect on the impressionistic Birds and the contemplative Sérénité, and he even echoes Bach amid Galliano's organ chords on the hymn-like Aria.

The group would have been very different without him, particularly on the trio, Appel Pie, and the quartet's explorations of Pourquoi?(a lament for lost love?), the spaciously lovely Poêmeand the standout title track.

www.milanrecords.com

RAY COMISKEY

radio.string.quartet.vienna/Klaus Paier

Radio Tree

ACT

There's much to admire in this union of the r.s.q.v and accordion and bandoneon player Klaus Paier, notably the crisp, zestful execution of Paier's charts and the integration of his role into the quartet's. The group - Bernie Mallinger and Johannes Dickbauer (violins), Cynthia Liao (viola) and Asja Valcic (cello) - are brilliant performers, with a tart, even aggressive, collective edge that enables them to tear into jazz-rock, as in Fly Up, or mix an Italian feel with a kind of country rock in Tarantella.

Yet they can just as persuasively encompass the warmth of Joe Zawinul's In a Silent Wayand A Remark You Made. The "but" resides in the writing, which relies a lot on counterpoint, leaving some pieces feeling undercooked. Significantly, perhaps, it's the longer performances ( Musical Journey in Three Movements, Hosent'raga, Prelude & Circulo), that remain the most satisfying.

www.actmusic.com

RAY COMISKEY