Top 10 Jazz

by Shaun Brady

2004's Expansion saw Burrell return to the studio for his first proper album as a leader in nearly 30 years, unleashing a high-energy flurry of pent-up invention. Taking a cue from the pianist's score for the 1925 Oscar Micheaux silent Body and Soul, his follow-up is a more subdued, brooding affair. Burrell elaborates haunting melodies into bluesy swing and stabbing dissonance, engaging his DB3 trio (bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Guillermo E. Brown) in tense, shifting interplay.

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The pioneering saxophonist's first new release in a decade may sound at times like it was recorded by some guy in the 43rd row, but somehow that muddy aliveness works in the album's favor. A cleaner production may not have fully captured the elastic, electric weave of the two-bass quartet. Coleman's pluralistic approach, here leading to a constantly-morphing series of solos, duos and trios merging and splitting with and against one another, continues to remain timelessly ahead-of-his-time.

A decade into his collaboration with three new-generation musicians, the Polish trumpeter presents the culmination of his efforts, a stark, atmospheric collection of explorations that evoke a harsh wintry expanse through which the quartet somehow communicates. The feel is of whispered intimacies connecting across vast distances.

The unity expressed by the title of the Wilmington-born pianist's latest refers not just to the fact that he sits alone at the piano, but to the sense of the album as an integrated suite rather than 12 disparate pieces. Shipp manages to capture the feel of his electronica-influenced experiments via the acoustic piano through his circular looping and beat-implying left-hand bursts.

The pianist's return to Blue Note showcases a selection of wide-open compositions whose thematic material often seems more suggested than stated outright. Hill's quintet peels back layer after layer of his dense compositions, revealing ever more depths.

The Philadelphia landmark's nine-horn ensemble gives forth a mighty shout born of the church but in praise of the higher power of the saxophone itself. Pope's brash, bracing compositions obviously inspire the soloists, most notably Michael Brecker, seemingly inspired both by the urgent blast of the choir and by his advancing illness to unleash an incendiary solo.

Finding common ground somewhere between Iceland and Brooklyn, Hilmar Jensson's crunching-metal guitar, Andrew D'Angelo's howling reeds and drummer Jim Black's lumbering pulse collide in a three-car pileup of rock, jazz and noise.

Laying aside the conceptual structure of recent releases, Douglas unveils nine new tunes that continue his seemingly endless ability to breathe fresh life into jazz forms. Ably aided by the refracted groove of Uri Caine's Fender Rhodes, the trumpeter leads a set tinged by electric fusion, playful but never less than immediate and invigorating.

Better-known as a fire-and-brimstone preacher of the saxophone, the other half of Gayle's split personality emerges on this solo piano disc. The brusque atonality one would expect from Gayle is certainly present, but those moments flow easily into more familiar territory encompassing the whole history of jazz piano. They're like the rapids in Gayle's stream of consciousness, where inspiration leads to nostalgia and back again.

Canadian reedsman Nachoff combines jazz trio with string quartet in an intricate waltz between progressive jazz and modern chamber music. Jazz with strings once used to imply treacly ballad treatments with maudlin violins weeping in the background as a solemn saxophonist tried to prove his "legitimacy" by confining himself to dull solemnity. But the strings here are jagged, violent and spontaneous, contributing solos just as integral to the music as those of the traditional jazz artists.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)