(3 of 4)
CHICK COREA: TONES FOR JOAN'S BONES (Vortex). There is a brilliant clarity, like tumbling diamonds, to the tones Pianist Corea polishes off here. His touch is firm and percussive, his ear tuned toward a definite, stirring pulse. In Litha he strings together quick, imaginative melodic fragments that are the mark of the alert modernist. When backing the other soloists (Joe Farrell, tenor; Woody Shaw Jr., trumpet), he spreads sprays of dazzling notes that support and enhance the horns' flights. In Tones for Joan's Bones, he displays a more reflective gleam by smoothly rolling the melody over Steve Swallow's loping bass and Joe Chambers' agile brushwork.
INTRODUCING DUKE PEARSON'S BIG BAND (Blue Note). Pianist-Arranger Pearson, whose previous records featured smaller groups, has gathered 15 solid players in order to amplify his musical ideas. Straight Up and Down is a tidy blend of high-flying exuberance and smooth delivery (note the trumpet's sassy quote of Sweet Georgia Brown and the baritone sax's sly paraphrase of Once I Had a Secret Love). While Mississippi Dip is a blues to be taken lithely, A Taste of Honey switches tempos faster than the foot can follow, building to heated ensemble crescendos behind Frank Foster's tenor and Jerry Dodgion's flute solos. New Girl, composed by Pearson, has a graceful flair and a nifty construction.
KEITH JARRETT: LIFE BETWEEN THE EXIT SIGNS (Vortex). Pianist Jarrett has been one of the keys to success of the Charles Lloyd Quartet, but here he emerges for the first time with his own trio, as well as his own compositions. His skill extends to the inside as well as the outside of the piano. In Love No. 2, he riffles the strings, producing a wiry thring that scrolls around Charlie Haden's bass. With more songful tunes, such as Everything I Love and Margot, he applies his agile touch to the keyboard and produces some lyrical, tender moments reminiscent of Bill Evans' playing.
ClNEMA
ISABEL. French Canadian Actress Genevieve Bujold and her writer-director husband Paul Almond click with their first professional collaboration, creating a shocker that manages to be both heartwarming and spine-chilling.
THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER. By reverse alchemy, Carson McCullers' novel is turned into dross, but two outstanding performances almost redeem the project: Alan Arkin as a poignant deaf-mute and Cicely Tyson as the embodiment of the slogan "Black is beautiful."
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. Director Stanley Kubrick dazzles the eye and bends the mind in this space-age parable of the meaning of life.
INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE. Nicol William son is John Osborne's 39-year-old London solicitor to the life, possessed by the terrifying realization that he is mediocrity itself and that what lies ahead for him is meaningless.
THE BRIDE WORE BLACK. Revenge is sweet, bitter, salty and sour in Francois Truffaut's poetic evocation of an idee fixe. Jeanne Moreau is the woman with the idee, and the men who killed her husband are the ones who get fixed in a series of alternately comic and eerie murders.