Walking a delicate fine line between straight-ahead and contemporary jazz, we get some great big band writing here by Brent Wallarab, with beautiful ensemble playing to boot! It’s amazing to me how a whole world can be created in a few minutes of instrumental music. Every composition has its own set of rules, like the laws of nature in an imagined universe, in which the players explore and their parts come to life. This piece opens up like a flower to the sunrise and just keeps opening, reaching and expanding. Lovely work.

Buselli-Wallarab Jazz Orchestra
“Suite Storytelling: The Glass Tree” (mp3)
from “Mezzanine”
(Owl Studios)

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I love Steve Davis, he sounds so much like JJ and his original compositions are always such ear candy for me! I love the entire album! This track is an uptempo, bright jazz instrumental with gr8 combo playing and some sweeeet solos. Tight!

Steve Davis
“Nato” (mp3)
from “Images”
(Posi-Tone Records)

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Any fan of Mahavishnu and John McLaughlin will appreciate this album. The lovely steel string work on the title track evokes something like calm seas flowing around a remote atoll, where life is unhurried. Instrumental, meditative bliss, but not the new age-y meandering kind. This performance, while chill, develops with intent and purpose. Just what I needed with my coffee on this fine urban Saturday AM.

Tassos Spiliotopoulos
“Archipelagos” (mp3)
from “Archipelagos”
(F-IRE Recorded Music Ltd.)

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If  Mr. Bungle turned into a New Orleans band it would be John Ellis & Double-Wide! Totally badass. Gr8 harmonica work by Gregoire Maret tops off brilliant performances by the whole combo, in a tightly arranged original jazz instrumental stuffed with musical humor and drama. Magnificent.

John Ellis & Double-Wide
“Dubinland Carnival” (mp3)
from “Puppet Mischief”
(ObliqSound)

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Instrumentally rockin’ the jazzy reggae partay for this 4th o’ jewel eye, we haz thee Jive Ass Sleepers, str8 outta Sacramento. Actually it’s just one dude, but I dig the way single artist/producers who create whole band-loads of musical bandwidth have taken to giving themselves band names lately. This is one exceedingly well produced sexy groovy instrumental. Play it at your BBQ and yer friends will be ever so happeh.

Jive Ass Sleepers
“Jamaican Street Jazz” (mp3)
from “Scratch”
(Magnatune)

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Aw, look out. Today’s mp3 niblet is from Moon Palace Revival, outta the insanely fertile musical crescent of Brooklyn, NY. Touring and session keyboardist, Peter Levin steps out on his solo debut, with original material in the vein of the soul artists that he grew up emulating & appreciating. An instrumental gem, with a tight combo led by Levin’s badass organ part. I love the dissonant sharp in the main riff, and I love where the group takes it from there. Delicious funky jazz boogie, bebbeh. Bust it.

Moon Palace Revival
“The Ghost Of Harlem” (mp3)
from “Moon Palace Revival – EP”
(reapandsow, Inc.)

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Is this tonal or atonal? With the prominent off-key cowbell it’s hard to say. Don’t get me wrong, we like more cowbell. Is this rock or is it some kind of 70′s funky jazz fusion? Wait that old school vocoder effect, now we’re in clubland! But the geetars and keys speak of jam bands in a sun-drenched summer bong-fest. Could it be this is all of those things? Presenting the very talented Lotus, ladies and gents, a jam band which brings a broad vocabulary and tangible joy to their performances. Summer playlist keeper material, fasho.

Lotus
“Bellwether” (mp3)
from “Hammerstrike”
(SCI Fidelity Records)

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Here is a luminous instrumental serenade from Canadian harp-guitarist Antoine Dufour. His instrumental mastery is matched by a child-like playfulness and wonder, that is such a refreshing contrast to today’s prevailing cynicism. It’s easy to hear when someone is really having fun playing, and that joy is instantly contagious. An all acoustic, no effects, str8 up the middle stringed instrument recording that is as vibrant as a Spring day.

Antoine Dufour
“Lost in Your Eyes” (mp3)
from “Convergences”
(Candy Rat Records)

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Here’s a tasty Sunday morning jazz nibblet. Syncopated uptempo drum beats and funky breaks hint at 70′s fusion, as a rich Hammond Organ with the classic Leslie Speaker effect cooks like bacon. Well conceived guitar and organ solos are treats – mercifully they do not descend into the kind of endless wanking that is so easy to fall into in a piece like this. All around it’s generous and delightful ear candy – music played with enthusiasm and joy by a trio of instrumental masters out of Santa Cruz, CA. Their live show schedj is posted on their myspace page. Enjoy.

On The Spot Trio
“Double Dig” (mp3)
from “Straight Out The Garden”
(U & L Records, Inc.)

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In the decades since “Afrobeat” was first invented as a genre, by essentially one original artist – Nigeria’s Fela Kuti – it has spawned pockets of devotees around the world, who do the unthinkable and start bands with 10, 15, 20 players. Little tougher to arrange a tour than with your little power pop trio, but that doesn’t deter groups like Brooklyn’s Ikebe Shakedown from getting up to git down. In the vein of fellow Brooklyn-ites Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Berkeley’s Albino and other practitioners of this exciting musical territory, “Hard Steppin’” steps onto the scene nice and hard.

Ikebe Shakedown
“Hard Steppin’” (mp3)
from “Hard Steppin’”
(Colemine Records)

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