The latest releases reviewed.

PHIL WARE TRIO In Our Own Time Livingroom ****

Four years together and an ongoing 12-month weekly Dublin residency have forged pianist Phil Ware's trio, with Dave Redmond (bass) and Kevin Brady (drums), into a thoroughly cohesive unit. The lingua franca is bop, spoken with fluency and flexibility. It's evident

in the way they drag time around in Jackie McLean's Dr Jackle and Stan Tracey's Monkishly quirky Llareggub, the deftly handled tempo changes of Redmond's angular Mind The Gap, and the groove they strike on Ware's Hipatitis, a blues with a bridge, and Brady's intriguing Fat Tuesday. The band's six originals are full of character, but it's the three ballad performances, Redmond's lovely Callisto, Nobody Does It Better and Brady's beautiful Goodbye Mr Münch, which epitomise the trio's individual and collective authority. www.philwaretrio.com Ray Comiskey

Download tracks: Goodbye Mr Münch, Llareggub, Callisto

MICHAEL GARRICK Inspirations JAZA ****

Garrick, who did so much to help the forward-looking character of British jazz in the 1960s and 1970s, remains a seriously under-regarded pianist, composer and arranger. Maybe he's not avant garde enough to suit the tenor of these times, but his playing, though rooted in Bill Evans and the post-bop period, continues to be fresh and personal. He's thoroughly at home in this working group with multi-reedman Martin Hathaway, bassist Paul Moylan and drummer Alan Jackson. Most of the repertoire is his and there's an ineffably gentle, almost pastoral, English and very Garrick feel to pieces such as Floating On Summer, Song Before Sunset, Beechwood Joys, Amethyst and

The Trees. Except for the liberties offered by Joe Harriott's Tonal, no boundaries are crossed; this is just lovely music from superior players. www.jazzscript.co.uk Ray Comiskey

Download tracks: Amethyst, The Trees

FRODE HALTLI Passing Images ECM ****

This starkly beautiful CD gives voice to what, stereotype or not, seems a specifically Norwegian aesthetic; a kind of chaste tranquillity beneath whose severity a cauldron of barely suppressed emotions is bubbling. Virtually all of the music is rooted in Norway's folk traditions, yet it is rigorously contemporary and some- how redolent of timeless northern landscapes. With his compatriots, Arve Henriksen (trumpet) and Maya Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje (voice), and British violist Garth Knox, the accordion virtuoso has fashioned a group music remarkable for its disciplined textures, dynamics and dramatic shapes, as the players deal so freely with the basic material.

A couple of spontaneously improvised episodes don't add much to the discourse, but at its best, in Psalm, Vandring, Lyrisk vals, and Jag haver ingen kärare, it's wonderful. www.musicconnection.org.uk Ray Comskey

Download tracks: Psalm, Vals