Andrea Centazzo, Perry Robinson, Nobu Stowe, Soul in the Mist, 2006

Nothing is simple today. Except that good and great music continues to be made. It continues to be recorded and made available to us all. And that writers like me continue to review it. You could think of that as ordinary or you could think of that as heroic. It depends on the place and situation involved. But it is by no means an easy task to do that and survive today, if it ever was.

So today we have another example of all that. Recorded in Trumpet's Jazz Club in Montclair, NJ, in 2006. It is what turns out to be an excellent grouping of Andrea Centazzo on percussion, the Mallet Kat keyboard and sampling; Perry Robinson on clarinet; and Nobu Stowe on piano. The compositional framework is Centazzo's. The album is called, poetically, The Soul in the Mist (Konnex-Ictus).

What we have are eight selections, modern-avant-minimal charts by Centazzo with room for the free improv for which these players are known.

Perry Robinson sounds especially good. I can't recall a time when he didn't but in the trio setting here there is plenty of space for him and both structure and freedom as jettison points from which to take off. And he does. Andreas has space as well to get the innovative full-spectrum sounds you expect from him, and the compositions bring out the sensitive exploratory side of his music to the max. Nobu Stowe puts in a very well conceived performance here, too.

In the end it's especially about Perry Robinson's clarinet though. This is one of his best showings of later years. He is superb.

Angelica Sanchez Quintet, Wires & Moss

Angelica Sanchez is officially here to stay. She's played and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith and others, she put out a very nice solo piano album a while back (type her name in the index box to read my review) and she now returns with a quintet on Wires & Moss (Clean Feed 259).

There's a warmth to her freedom, compositionally and as a pianist, and it shows nicely on this disk. She's gathered excellent all-star caliber players in Marc Ducret, guitar, Tony Malaby, tenor and soprano, Drew Gress on contrabass, and Tom Rainey, drums. And she's put six of her compositions together for the occasion.

This is a band that can solo! And they do overtop the very hip-ly loose straight-eight free doings of the rhythm team.

The result is an extension of what she did/does with Wadada, free jazz-rock going considerably further in sophistication and complex running counterpoint than some of the heavier handed variety out there. Then Angelica will surprise you with some very advanced piano, lyrical and very creative, surprise you because it all fits together in her head but most leaders don't mix it up quite like this. New music meets meta-groove? Well, yes.

It goes a long way forward, miles ahead ahead. And it's very original too! Listen to this one a bunch of times and you will get there, in new territory.

Michael Attias, Spun Tree

By now the avant-stream in contemporary jazz has a number of facets going for it. One of them is highly compositional but with plenty of solo space, freedom and construction joining hands for a new meld.

Michael Attias's disk Spun Tree (Clean Feed 261) is an excellent example. It seems that the structural innovations of the best of the AACM composer-instrumentalists, George Russell and Bill Dixon's compositional approaches, influences of new music and the energy of the new thing classics have become synthesized in new and rewarding, even exciting ways. Spun Tree fits right in there among the best.

The band on this album is relatively small, a quintet, yet the way the voicings work it often sounds fuller. Michael is on the alto and he has some excellent support from Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Matt Mitchell on piano, Sean Conly on double bass, and Tom Rainey at the drums.

They run through eight composition-improvisations with great spirit. The composed parts don't fall into head-solos-head patterns so much as appear as vignettes to catalyze improvs and comment on them and vice versa. I won't say this sounds like Ornette's classic Free Jazz or Trane's Ascension. It doesn't. But the structural innovations of those classics have been expanded on and taken further in the complexity of how the music works.

Great compositions, soloists and pacing make this album a listen you should not miss! Michael Attias has it going for him.