The latest CD releases reviewed

TRYGVE SEIM/FRODE HALTLI
Yeraz ECM ****
There's an Eastern cast to some of the music from this tenor and accordion duo. And though only part of the repertoire can be directly sourced to the area (an Armenian folk song and two pieces by the Greek-Armenian mystic GI Gurdjieff), the influence is subtly manifest elsewhere. It gives an almost folklike simplicity to Seim and Haltli's interaction, which, despite its overall meditative feel, persuasively embraces moods as disparate as a rubato version of Bob Marley's Redemption Island; the devotional aura of Bhavana; the eerie, haunted lament of Airamero; and even Seim's Waits for Waltz, a tribute to Tom Waits that finds the duo at their most extroverted. Their low-key approach may not have universal appeal, but the music is full of delicacy and beauty. Even the free playing has a sense of unity and structure not always evident in improvisations in more formal idioms. www.musicconnection.org.uk RAY COMISKEY

JAMIE BAUM
Solace Sunnyside ***
Flautist and composer Baum displays an enviable range as a writer and performer on this CD, the second with her longtime core septet of trumpet, flutes, alto/bass clarinet, french horn and pianobass-drums. Hers is a very personal melodic and harmonic sensibility (evident in the long-lined beauty of Solaceand Wheeler of Fortune) and a subtly imaginative touch with ensemble writing. But the album's core is the four-part Ives Suite, inspired by Charles Ives's Fourth Symphonyand The Unanswered Question. Its use of polytonality and polyphony in the opening Time Travelersection offers fertile ground for the soloists, George Colligan (piano), Douglas Yates (alto) and Baum herself. The third part, Questions Unanswered, mixes JFK's inaugural speech into the ensemble with perhaps more
intellectual than musical justification. But Colligan, the standout soloist, is a huge plus on a release by a singular compositional talent. www.sunnysiderecords.com RAY COMISKEY

BOB MINTZER
Swing Out MCG ****
This well-crafted album is contemporary big band swing at its best, partly because of the imagination that Mintzer, as composer, arranger and tenor soloist, brings to bear. His liberal use of counterpoint is on a par with Bill Holman for deft invention, and his reworking of Someday My Prince Will Comeis an ingenious mix of counterpoint, tartly realigned melody and richly voiced textures, all done without diluting the essentially swinging character of the writing. Then there's the band. The ensembles, often complex yet uncluttered, like those of Each Day, Something Else, Swangalang, Beyond the Limitand Minuano(with singer Kurt Elling on a new arrangement ofthe Elling-Metheny-Mays original) are executed with verve and precision by a group of New York's best. Mintzer, Scott Wendholt (trumpet) and Phil Markowitz (piano) are strongly featured as soloists - and don't disappoint. www.musicconnection.org.uk RAY COMISKEY