Notable CDs

Given the absence of lyrics and liner-note explication, there’s no telling whether the eight-minute “No Pope No Party” is this quintet’s non-sectarian creed or its way of saying that Catholics have more fun. But, given the lighthearted way that everyone takes turns soloing through it, the musicians themselves probably don’t care as long as listeners enjoy themselves. Listeners will. They might even believe in miracles once the push and pull of the nine-minute, mood-establishing “Easy Healing” has had its way with them.

Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch

Note the title: It’s the spirit, not the letter, of Louis Armstrong’s law that Mac Rebennack and his dozen-plus special guests are striving to capture. Get that much and you’ll be open to, if not consistently enamored with, the experiments they conduct on such familiar material as “What a Wonderful World” and “When You’re Smiling.” With everything from gospel and funk to hip-hop and Spanish woven into the mix, the results insist upon being heard as nothing less than something new under the sun.

All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller

Note the title: Moran and his guests have made an album for, not a tribute to, history’s most popular stride pianist. Get that much and you’ll be open to, if not consistently enamored of, the smooth-jazz-meets-subtle-hip-hop experiments that they conduct on such familiar material as “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” Meshell Ndegeocello coos the former, but it’s Leron Thomas who steals the vocal show (“Two Sleepy People”). And on the least experimental track, the pianist Moran capably flaunts his own “Handful of Keys.”

The Original Recordings That Inspired the Broadway Hit After Midnight

A 15-cut Duke Ellington’s greatest-hits album is too short. But if those 15 cuts represent enough of Ellington’s sparkle to induce novices to explore his ever-expanding catalog as these do, there’s certainly no harm done. And since the recordings, the hoariest of which are over 80 years old, are presented in their cleanest-sounding remastered versions yet, maybe even veteran fans will take a flyer. That the album is a gimmick to persuade people to buy tickets to After Midnight hardly matters at all.

Spotlight

If Stefani Germanotta had never morphed into the outré performance artist Lady Gaga, her new album with Tony Bennett, Cheek to Cheek (Streamline/Columbia/Interscope) might simply be regarded as Bennett’s latest way of demonstrating the resilience of his octogenarian pipes. But morph into Lady Gaga she did, and now that she has stripped her singing back down to its roots in musical theater, she’s getting publicity not unlike that generated by the members of Kiss when they removed their makeup.

Cheek to Cheek’s charms, however, aren’t merely cosmetic. Bennett, Gaga, and their swinging ensemble really know how to have fun and fan the embers of the 11-18 Great American Songbook standards that comprise the album’s various editions. What hasn’t been pointed out is that, if such stuff is truly what one craves, Louis Prima and Keely Smith did it even livelier approximately 60 years ago. And their albums are still in print. —A.O.