The latest CD releases reviewed

TERELL STAFFORD
Taking Chances MaxJazz ****

A live date usually brings out the best from a working group, and that's what happens here. Stafford, on trumpet and flugelhorn, is in magisterial form, Tim Warfield (soprano/tenor) is a fine soloist, and the Bruce Barth-Derrick Hodge- Dana Hall rhythm section fits beautifully. And while this is a blowing band, there's nothing casual about the way each piece is set up. A fresh approach transforms Taking a Chance on Love, creating a mood for impressive work by Stafford, Warfield and Barth, and even Shake It for Me, which most overtly recalls 1960s Blue Note bluesy funk, seems less of a museum piece than it might have been. Nothing to set the revolutionary tumbrils rolling, but it's a combustible piece of hard bop with some contemporary harmonic and rhythmic liberties. www.maxjazz.com

Download tracks: Taking a Chance on Love, Shake It for Me

ALESSANDRO CARABELLI
Aphrodite Nagel Heyer ***

Italian pianist Carabelli composed nearly all the music for this well- crafted album, using various combinations drawn from a sextet, in which he shares the front line with Franco Ambrosetti (trumpet/ flugelhorn), Diego Mascherpa (soprano/alto/clarinet) and Luciano Zadro (guitar), with Marco Conti (bass) and Stefano Bagnoli (drums) completing an efficient rhythm section. What emerges has a distinctly Italian cast, melodic and graceful, the soloists lyrical and thoroughly at ease with the requirements of the music, and embracing the heart-on-sleeve romanticism the music seems to encourage. Yet the feeling  persists that it should stretch them more; the harder edge a US band would bring to it is less evident.  It's another sensibility. Different strokes . . . www.musicconnection. org.uk

BILL CARROTHERS
Keep Your Sunny Side Up Pirouet ****

There's a vein of exuberant mischief running through the latest CD from this great pianist, evident not only in the offbeat choices (the title track, heard in two very different versions, is one), but also in the

way some are Monkishly demolished. A few standards get a refreshingly mock-heroic workover. But there are contrasts, too, in the sombre beauty of Roses Blue, Carrothers's Church of the Open Air, the swinging I Can't Begin to Tell You (another offbeat choice) and the impressionistic opening of The Night We Called It a Day, which presages a superb piano solo. Carrothers and drummer Air Hoenig - kindred spirits who egg each other on - share remarkable chemistry (Salty Peanuts is a spontaneous duo performance) and Ben Street (bass) completes a trio so flexible it can turn on a dime. www.pirouetrecords.com