Notable CDs

This meeting between the onetime (and still sort of) novelty trio and the onetime (and still sort of) Next Big Sax Thing has its awkward moments. There’s “Silence Is the Question,” for instance, one of two revisions from The Bad Plus back catalog. Originally overlong at a saxless eight minutes, it feels even more random saxed up to 13. The new “Dirty Blonde,” however, is an improvement. And, in general, the mesh takes enough to make one hope that this experiment isn’t just a one-off.

Time Pieces

The homage-paying, parameter-establishing covers are a Horace Silver tune from 1959 and a Herbie Hancock tune from 1966, both older than Eastwood and both indicative of the semihard bop to which he and his supporting quartet gravitate when they compose their own homages (trumpeter Quentin Collins’ and pianist Andrew McCormack’s “Piece of Silver”) or possible future standards (“Incantation,” “Nostalgique”). As for the Hancock cover, Eastwood’s claiming the melody for double bass before Collins takes over is indicative of the album’s many nice touches.

Beautiful Life

The “beautiful life” that this beautiful album celebrates is that of saxophonist Jimmy Greene’s 6-year-old daughter Ana, who along with 19 other children was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in December 2012. What keeps the music from exhibitionism and manipulativeness is the same thing that enabled Greene to undertake this project in the first place: his Christian faith. That—not Greene’s eloquent playing or the high-profile, show-of-support cameos (Pat Metheny, Christian McBride, Kurt Elling)—is the real source of this music’s luminosity.

Song Singular

Recorded in 2012 but unreleased until 2014, this solo outing by the well-regarded British pianist may well be in his rearview mirror by now, especially with the even more recent appearance of his eponymous trio’s eponymous debut. But before he or anyone else moves on, it’s worth appreciating this album’s recreation of “Take the ‘A’ Train,” the parts of which Hawkins rearranges like a gifted cubist until their near unrecognizability becomes both a motif and a key to appreciating the singularity of this album’s other nine songs.

Spotlight

John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, one of the most fully realized extended jazz recordings (and compositions) ever, was released 50 years ago, making 2015 ripe for gold-anniversary celebrations. Hence Sony Masterworks’ reissuing the Branford Marsalis Quartet’s Branford Marsalis Quartet Performs Coltrane’s A Love Supreme Live in Amsterdam. Originally released in 2004 as a DVD (a format in which it can still be purchased), the performance now comes in DVD+CD, CD-only, and even vinyl-only editions.

On paper, the main differences between the Coltrane and the Marsalis renditions would seem to be statistical: As played by the Marsalis Quartet, each of the suite’s four movements runs anywhere from 20 seconds to 10 minutes longer than the Coltrane Quartet originals, resulting in approximately 15 minutes more music altogether. Jazz being an art, of course, quantity doesn’t necessarily equal quality. What makes the Marsalis Quartet’s interpretations special is their enthusiastic in-the-moment blend of reverent fidelity and virtuosic improvisation.