The latest CD releases reviewed

GORDON BECK
Reflections Art of Life ****

Gordon Beck so seldom records that, when one of his rare albums does appear, it's a shock to realise, yet again, just how good a pianist he is. It's underlined by this re-release of a fine solo concert taped by the BBC at the Bath Festival in 1997, in which he pays tribute to his great influence, Bill Evans. Lengthy performances of Night and Day, Come Rain or Come Shine and I Love You are brilliant fantasias created by a musician whose abundant technique and harmonic knowhow are at the service of an equally fertile imagination. Yet even when the Evans influence is most explicitly acknowledged, in a memorable Re: Person I Knew, California Here I Come and Some Other Time, he is emphatically his own man. The sound is rich, resonant and fully captures the nuanced clarity of the playing. www.musicconnection.org.uk  

JOHNNY MATHIS
A New Sound in Popular Music Fresh Sound ***

Johnny Mathis made his debut with this "jazz" album and a pop single (included here) at 20, when he was wondering which way to go. The single clicked and his wallet decided. Wise. Mathis is no jazz singer; his idiosyncratic style worked well enough on some things and less well on others, thankfully few of which are here. The arrangements were done by such jazz luminaries as Gil Evans, John Lewis, Teo Macero and Manny Albam, but despite this and solos and obbligatos by trumpeters Art Farmer and Buck Clayton, pianists John Lewis and Eddie Costa, and altoist Phil Woods, the backgrounds are functional, though Evans gives intermittent glimpses of his originality. Nevertheless, Mathis, like him or leave him, was unique, and this rare material, on CD for the first time, has at least curiosity value. www.freshsoundrecords.com

Aliquo is a capable tenor who has grafted something of Coltrane and Joe Henderson, albeit less driven and intense, on to what is essentially a straight-ahead, hard-bop style. He's drawn together a quintet of idiomatically like-minded players in Clay Jenkins (trumpet), Dana Landry (piano), Rufus Reid (bass) and Jim White (drums) for a programme of originals and two standards. The result is a hard-swinging, well organised album of consistently good playing, even though the undue reliance on unison ensembles slightly dilutes the group's impact. But the performances do have the zest and energy the idiom demands, the soloists, Landry in particular, are impressive, and the rhythm section is ideal. If hard bop's your thing, this is for you.