Brad Mehldau: Art Of The Trio Four (Warner Bros)

This is a marvellous album, possibly the finest yet from the Mehldau-Grenadier-Rossy group so well documented in this Warner series, which now covers roughly the last four years of the trio's development. It's also the second live recording - 1997's volume two was the first - and it catches them again at New York's Village Vanguard, this time last January, at what sounds like a peak. Piano, bass and drums offer distinct but complementary voices as they explore rhythm, line and harmony together with a fluidity which is both open and somehow complete. Some material - Sehnsucht and Exit Music (For A Film) - is re-examined, but it's all treated with the passionate involvement and inspiration that mark this trio now as one of the great groups in jazz.

- Ray Comiskey

Nat King Cole Trio: Live At The Circle (Capitol)

Different strokes; another piano trio, this time with guitar and bass and led by a man more famed as a singer than an instrumentalist. But in the 1940s Cole was also one of the best pianists in jazz, capable of holding his own in the fastest company until, like guitarist George Benson later, he found a bigger market for his vocal talent and settled for that. Who can blame him? What's interesting about this album is that it's the first live example of his fine mid-40s trio with Oscar Moore and Johnny Miller ever discovered; the recording quality is more than acceptable, as are the performances by a tight, professional group, which, with Cole's attractive singing and impressive piano, make it essential for fans.

- Ray Comiskey