Pianist Geoffrey Keezer and vibraphonist Joe Locke have enjoyed stellar independent careers as well as acclaimed collaborations -- in the Joe Locke Group with saxophonist Tim Garland as Storms and Nocturnes; and as half of the Joe Locke/Geoffrey Keezer Group with bassist Mike Pope and drummer Terreon Gulley. The latter ensemble debuted on record with the Earshot Festival award-winning Live in Seattle (2005), and finally have reunited to release their first studio recording, Signing. The recording also marks Locke’s inaugural voyage on the Motema label. "I had a lot of different projects fleshed out in my mind, but I knew The Joe Locke / Geoffrey Keezer Group had to be first out of the block [on Motema] because I feel that what we do really defines who I am musically," explains Locke.

Upstate New York native Park Evans relocated to Minnesota to study classical guitar, and soon found himself among the Twin Cities’ jazz guitar elite, heading his own bands like Parker Paisley and Firebell, and making his presence heard and felt in many other genre crossing ensembles, including the Enormous Quartet, Charlie Devanna, Fonster, Tickle Fight and more. For his third recording of original music, Satori for a Hungry Ghost, he gathered Parker Paisley cohorts Brandon Wozniak (tenor sax), Adam Wozniak (bass), and Pete Hennig (drums), with Greg Schutte handling recording and mixing, and Matthew Zimmerman mastering it all at Wild Sounds Studio. All 8 tracks were composed by Evans, with the finale “Emmanuel Jackson” based in part on the traditional “Oh Come Ye Emmanuel.”

If “satori” refers generally to the Buddhist concept of “enlightenment, ” then Parker Paisley meets expectations for an album that brings to light (and sound) the creative play of both the ensemble and its leader, with each track casting a beam that focuses on one or more aspects of their talent and collaboration. “Annihilation” opens the set on ambient notes, soon moving to the surprise of popping guitar statements that set up Brandon Wozniak’s melodic wanderings. The title track follows with Evans’ own laid-back lyricism and an assertive drum break from Pete Hennig.

“Could You Be Deceived?” mines funky guitar antics with a touch of country jig; Hennig and Adam Wozniak keep busy driving the pulse and saxman Brandon teeters on a playful R&B ledge. “Divas of the Tenor” is a mere 28 seconds of slightly trashy bebop funk – perhaps a joking interlude between takes? Let’s have some more of this! Brandon gets a lot more time to stretch on “Jean Grey,” where bop balladry meets his 21st century musings, with guitar and bass providing a gently simmering commentary; Adam’s bouncy solo serves as agitator for the ensuing discussion among guitar and sax, with a final fade out that suggests a more other-wordly conversation.

“Third Persona” also features Adam, soloing over some ambient guitar effects that evolve into a more direct exploration via guitar, then sax, then ensemble. “What You Saw Before Drowning” reveals Brandon’s more introspective side, weaving around the outline traced by guitar and bass; just when the track seems to settle into a predictable groove, something –someone—shifts the conversation; here it’s Evans interjecting mellow acoustic suggestions, with Adam providing a majestic summation. The set closes with “Emmanuel Jackson,” Park and Brandon using the traditional melody as a hymnal launching point, Hennig providing a sheer backdrop of cymbals.

It’s a very satisfying set, to be celebrated this weekend (Friday, April 13 at 9 pm) at Jazz Central.

Jazz Central is located at 407 Central Av NE in Minneapolis, lower level. More about Park Evans and Parker Paisley at www.myspace.com/parkevans

“I love how the great women jazz singers didn’t allow the songs of the time to define or reduce them – they redefined and expanded the meanings of the songs with their bold storytelling. In doing so, they gave themselves and other women a bigger space to live in.” ---Kate McGarry

Eclectic vocalist Kate McGarry describes her new Girl Talk as “my first straight-ahead recording in many years.” Well, don’t be too quick to assume this really is all that straight-ahead. Just remember who we are dealing with here: One of her early mentors was saxophonist Archie Shepp. She spent three years in a meditation ashram in upstate New York. She’s recorded with such inventive jazzers as Fred Hersch, Kurt Elling, and Maria Schneider, and forms one-fifth of the vocal ensemble Moss, which includes the wildly creative Theo Bleckmann. If Girl Talk is straight-head for McGarry, all things are relative, and indeed the 10 tracks reflect accessible songs from the repertoires of Kate’s favorite jazz singers, from Sarah Vaughn and Anita O’Day to Shirley Horn and Betty Carter-- “our strong lineage of visionary jazz women,” adds McGarry. “I see this album as a bridge between the contemporary things I do and the jazz tradition I learned so much from.” Kate has always walked her own path through music, putting her unique stamp on everything from melody to meter to political interpretation. Her approach to the music of Girl Talk, her fifth Palmetto recording, only reinforces that journey with the intimacy of a small ensemble that includes husband Keith Ganz on guitar, Gary Versace on piano and organ, Reuben Rogers on bass and Clarence Penn on drums. Frequent cohort Kurt Elling adds his voice to one track.

Kate opens with the Rodgers/Hammerstein “We Kiss in the Shadows,” here a hopeful –and beautifully rendered--anthem about loving whomever we choose without the bounds of convention. “To me, it became a song about civil rights,” she says. “It’s sad, but hopeful.” The title track, by Bobby Troupe and Neal Hefti, was recorded by Betty Carter, and like her role model, McGarry refuses to take the lyrics (or the melody) at face value, giving a song that potentially emphasizes resignation a not-so-subtle political statement. Guitar and organ implant a swaying groove. Kurt Elling joins in on Dori Caymmi’s “O Cantador,” the two voices intertwining beautifully in Portuguese while Elling’s solo is as moving as any ballad he has recorded to date.

Other tracks include a briskly swinging “I Just Found Out About Love”; a slower, plaintive “The Man I Love” (“a more explicitly cautionary tale,” says Kate); the understated, upbeat arrangement of “This Heart of Mine,” featuring Keith Ganz’s boppish guitar and Reuben Roger’s swinging basslines; Kate’s (least straight-ahead) horn-like phrasing and vocalese on “I Know That You Know” that also highlights a delightfully sputtering duel among Ganz and Penn; a gorgeously brooding take on Jimmy Rowles’ “Looking Back”; a cleverly funky, almost sinister rendition of “Charade”; and the closing, foot-tapping delight, “It’s a Wonderful World,” McGarry and company truly “walking on air” as they set the sunny standard with a modern-day rhythm.

So many elements merge to make Girl Talk more than just another vocal album but rather a masterpiece of artistic riches, ensemble collaboration, and interpretive wisdom. But the centerpiece of this wonderful world is Kate McGarry.

Although his music has been in the limelight for more than six decades, Ahmad Jamal has not been taken for granted. The French Jazz Academy named his Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-62 (Mosaic) Best Reissue of the Year, and the readers of DownBeat voted him into the Hall of Fame in late 2011. Jamal, now 81, could just coast along without dimming the glow. But anyone who has had the fortune to see him live over the past few years has witnessed just the opposite-- an artist who seems to grow younger and more open every year. Two years after the success of his chart-topping Dreyfus release, Quiet Time, Jamal has reconstituted his ensemble and come back with Blue Moon: The New York Session, a stunning debut on the French label, Jazz Village.

Blue Moon finds Jamal in New York's Avatar Studios with veterans Reginald Veal on bass and Herlin Riley on drums, and frequent cohort Manolo Badrena on Latin percussion. The nine tracks cover diverse sources, from Jamal himself (3 originals) to American themes in film, Broadway, pop, and jazz. The Rodgers and Hart title track is given a heavy dose of Latinization, thanks to Riley and Badrena—it might be a “blue moon” but it rises over tropical sands, scrambling through trademark Jamal shifts in tempo, register, and rhythm. “Laura” (Raskin and Mercer) has a gentle ambience but Jamal paints a multi-hued tapestry of sound with the barest of accompaniment from Veal.

The surprising, jerky syncopation of “Gypsy” is followed by an extended (13 minutes) “Invitation,” propelled by a funky overdrive that counters Jamal’s lyrical interludes, perhaps summing his current eclecticism better than any other track here—one of those “invitations” you can’t refuse. The other lengthy excursion is Jamal’s own melodic reverie, “I Remember Italy,” the pianist supported by elegant bowed basslines from Veal alone for the first 4 minutes before shifting into gentle quartet mode; Badrena even adds some faint bird chirps and tinkling bells midway as if the ensemble has stumbled into an enchanted garden. But the star is Jamal, his touch elegant throughout, be it in trilling chordal motions, lightly articulated storylines or regal summations. The set closes with a reworking of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Woody ‘N You,” a favorite that Jamal first recorded back in 1958. Here it moves south of the border with just a touch of samba seeping through the post-bop crevices, as joyful as Ahmad himself.