Latest CD releases reviewed

ANDRA SPARKS
Your Time Verge
***

This is a second album from Sparks, a classically trained singer with a lovely voice, fine intonation, crystal-clear diction and respect for lyrics. Featuring the same superb trio of Nick Weldon (piano), Jeff Clyne (bass) and Trevor Tomkins (drums) from her earlier People We Once Knew release, with Russell van den Berg (tenor/soprano) replacing reedman Iain Dixon, it's also much more reliant on standards. To these she brings a somewhat considered approach; it's theoriginals - Léo Ferré's title track, Kenny Wheeler's Sweet Dulcinea Blue and, above all, Bob Dorough's tartly hip Small Day Tomorrow - that seem to draw her in and spark her interpretative gifts to the fullest. Certainly, they stand out on an album also notable for the quality of her support. www.jazzpiano.co.uk - Ray Comiskey

KETIL BJØRNSTAD
The Nest Universal Emarcy
***

Scandinavian composer/pianist Bjørnstad's melancholic, somewhat minimalist melodicity offers a restricted, if beautiful, palette only tangentially connected with jazz. Here it's used on settings of Hart Crane's poetry, itself more mood-evoking than thought-provoking, and sung surprisingly effectively, since she doesn't disguise her accent, by Anneli Drecker; also included is instrumental music Bjørnstad wrote for a play inspired by the sorrow-filled life of literary Nobel winner Sigrid Unset. With a fine viola player, Nora Taksdal, guitarist Eivind Aarset (kept on a leash), Kjetil Bjerkestrand on synthesizers, samplers and percussion and Bjørnstad using piano and synthesizers, this is lovely, gentle music, but sombre and monochrome in mood. - Ray Comiskey