This week's Jazz releases reviewed

KENNY WHEELER / COLOURS JAZZ ORCHESTRA

Nineteen Plus One Astarte ****

Using conventional big band instrumentation (Italy's excellent Colours orchestra) and arranging some standards with Sinatra associations, Kenny Wheeler then stamps his own personality on the outcome. His writing may have echoes (of Gil Evans, for one), but it's unmistakeably Wheeler, just as the abundant, lovely flugelhorn solos here could only be his. The arrangements, incorporating the wordless vocal lines of the excellent Diana Torto (a device he has used with equal success with Norma Winstone), are vivid tone poems in which he finds fresh colours for such old melodies as Only the Lonely, All or Nothing at All, How Deep Is the Ocean, I Should Care, When Your Lover Has Goneand The Man I Love. But he also reworks them in richly textured, consistently imaginative ways on a gorgeous CD that closes with a typical Wheeler original called, cryptically, WW. www.egeamusic.com

JIM HART'S GEMINI

Narrada Loop ****

Vibes and marimba player Jim Hart's Words and Music CD was mainstream jazz, but Gemini, with Jasper Høiby, Dave Smith, and multi-instrumentalist Ivo Neame on alto, is his modern take on post-bop concerns. Hart wrote all the material, and the complex, angular lines, in Four Little Words, the freedom/structure of Dark Moonand the staccato Crunchy Country, combine the cerebral with clarity and accessibility. But there's lyricism as well, in the rubato Kindred, a flowing Last of the Leavesand the 3/4 Colette. Hart's warm, resonant sound and Neame's unfussy, somewhat withheld tone offer a contrast that works. They are inventive players attuned to each other in a quartet where Høiby, a marvellous bassist, and Smith, a brilliant drummer, are impeccably responsive – especially on a standout Deviation, where the band grooves in a typically considered way. www.loopcollective.org

MANUEL VALERA

Currents MaxJazz ****

Cuban-born, US-based pianist Valera has a name that resonates in Irish history but, perhaps because he also works in latin music, he's not as well known as a jazz musician as he should be. Regardless, Valera is a top-table talent, as this hugely impressive trio outing with James Genus (acoustic and electric bass) and the stunning Ernesto Simpson (drums) confirms. Corea, Jarrett, Bill Evans and, surprisingly, Red Garland are acknowledged influences, and if the latin touches here suggest Corea, Valera is clearly a well-formed musical personality himself. Blessed with great imagination and technique, Valera (who uses keyboards sparingly for extra colour) leads his trio through intensely focused interaction on a programme of originals, a super outing on Monk's We See and three superior standards, including a lyrical I Fall in Love Too Easily.The recording quality is exceptional. www.maxjazz.com