Jazz

The latest release reviewed

On this quartet session with old hands Ronnie Mathews (piano), Peter Washington (bass) and the much younger Roy Hargrove (trumpet), drummer Jimmy Cobb has come up with a typically solid, swinging date. The idiom is mainstream/bop, the repertoire mostly standards, and nobody is asked to go where there are no maps provided. It just needs a spark to take it out of the comfort zone of good taste and high-level professionalism. And the rhythm section, particularly the underrated veteran Mathews, offers the potentially combustible fuel for that to happen. It doesn't quite. Hargrove plays well, especially on the ballads, but in a contained, considered manner; he doesn't sound totally at home here - unlike the buoyant Mathews, who is worth the album by himself. www.musicconnection.org.uk    RAY COMISKEY

Sidney Bechet used the sax-trumpet- guitar-bass format in 1940. Now, using the same format, Nagl et al simultaneously delve back later than that while maintaining a contemporary edge, combining a parodic, silent era touch echoing Chaplin and Keystone Cops comedies, with contemporary free improv, all in originals by altoist Nagl and trumpeter Bernstein. It's framed in tight, tricky, multi-faceted arrangements crisply performed by a quartet with superb internal balance and dynamics - and a sense of humour. These are quality musicians. And yet, while it must have been great fun in concert (this is a live recording), the music is, paradoxically, if not quite one-dimensional, rather limited. The question is: would you want to have their emotions invade your tranquillity more than once? http://uk.hmboutique.com

RAY COMISKEY