GOOD & BAD MEMORIES

For his third Criss Cross release, following Today is Tomorrow (CRC 1345) and I'll Take My Chances (CRC 1361) tenor saxophonist Dayna Stephens presents a fresh take on the 'saxophone battle' genre in partnership with rising star Walter Smith III, himself the leader of the critically acclaimed III (CRC 1328). Complemented by a state of-the-art rhythm section of A-list 30-something's (Aaron Parks, piano; Mike Moreno, guitar; Harish Raghavan; and Rodney Green, drums) the protagonist juxtapose their distinctive instrumental voices and apply their melody-centric sensibilities to a varied program comprising original music, as well as the iconic two-tenor standard Blues Up And Down and Bill Evans' Blue in Green. Less a cutting than a forum for collective story-telling, Reminiscent is a tour de force that will repay repeated listening's.

TODAYS OPINION

Tenor saxophonist Dayna Stephens is poised, poetic and furiously swinging on his second Criss Cross effort, I'll Take My Chances, a follow-up to his remarkable 2012 release Today Is Tomorrow. The quintet features guitarist Charles Altura, a newcomer to Criss Cross and a key melodic and solo voice throughout. Pianist Gerald Clayton, returning to Criss Cross after sideman sessions with Kendrick Scott and Michael Rodriguez, brings keen virtuosity and harmonic insight to Stephens' challenging, deeply lyrical compositions. Bassist Joe Sanders, whose issued Introducing Joe Sanders on Criss Cross in 2012, achieves an effortless sense of connection with drummer Bill Stewart, a veteran of over 20 Criss Cross sessions, not to mention one of the great influential players of the last 20 years. Along with 5 originals, Field of Landmines by Stephens and Marcus Gilmore, Adrift by Aaron Parks (the pianist on Today Is Tomorrow) and a hard-swinging reinvention of Brad Mehldau's Unrequited, Stephens also includes a rhapsodic treatment of Ellington's Prelude to a Kiss, featuring guest vocalist Becca Stevens. There's also a striking departure: A track with Clayton on organ and the leader on husky, soul-drenched baritone sax.

A Bay Area native, tenor saxophonist Dayna Stephens makes his auspiciousdebut on the Criss Cross label with Today Is Tomorrow - a soaring, lyrical, deeply swinging collection of originals and jazz classics (Hoagy Carmichael's Skylark, Joe Henderson's Black Narcissus). As a 2003 graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute, Stephens had the opportunity to work with the likes of Dave Holland, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, whohelped strengthen his complex sensibility as a composer and improviser. In recent years Dayna has appeared with the likes of Carlos Santana, Kenny Barron, Terence Blanchard, Gretchen Parlato and many others. Joining Stephens on Today Is Tomorrow is a stellar cast, featuring Aaron Parks on piano and the sturdy rhythm section of Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass and Donald Edwards on drums. Supplementing the lineup are Julian Lage, one of the jazz scene's most exciting newcomers on guitar, and Michael Rodriguez, a fiery trumpeter with credits including Charlie Haden and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Stephens pilots them through the set with finesse and heart, proving himself a player quickly on the rise.

Trumpeter Alex Sipiagin's ninth Criss Cross album may be his most conceptually ambitious. The 43-year-old trumpeter is these days garnering broad international recognition as a solo artist, as well as for his inspired virtuoso playing in various Dave Holland and Mingus Orchestra, offers seven original pieces - performed by a distinguished band of A-listers - that contain heady polyphony, substantial melodies, beautiful voicings, and intoxicating rhythms. It's a cutting edge of the 21st century jazz. The band: Chris Potter, tenor sax and flute; David Binney, alto sax; Craig Taborn, piano and fender rhodes; Boris Koslov, bass; and Eric Harland, drums.

This is trombonist Wycliffe Gordon's fifth outing as a leader on Criss Cross and perhaps his most personal statement. Augmenting a strong roots-to-modern jazz sextet with a gospel choir from Georgia, his home state, Gordon presents a joyful noise, referencing the vocabularies of Armstrong, Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton with an eye keenly honed in on the present day. In the band: Marcus Printup on trumpet, Victor Goines on saxes and clarinet, Eric Reed on piano with bassist Reginald Veal and drummer Alvin Atkinson Jr..

During his 13-year association with Criss Cross, which includes six prior leader dates and another five with the nonpareil hard bop collective One for All, trumpeter Jim Rotondi has consistently maintained high standards of excellence in his playing and writing. The Move is no exception - Rotondi's strong sextet, all long-time colleagues (Ralph Bowen, tenor sax; Mike DiRubbo, alto sax; David Hazeltine, piano; John Webber, bass; Joe Farnsworth, drums), play the stimulating charts with heat, creative spirit, and deep craft, each member stamping themselves as personal voices in the mainstream jazz timeline.

MY BROTHER THE WIND 1

BLACKSTONE LEGACY

On his sixth session as a leader for Criss Cross Jazz, One for All trumpeter Jim Rotondi pushes the hard bop envelope, broadening the music's horizons with a new quintet that utilizes veteran vibraphonist Steve Nelson in place of the usual piano. Criss Cross. 2006.

It's been ten years now since Jesse Van Ruller won the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition (the first European artist to do so), and yet audiences have yet to fully appreciate his immense talents. Criss Cross. 2006.

One of a number of sessions cut at the Choreographers' Workshop, this 1963 set establishes Sun Ra's Arkestra as a New York band, sonically coupled to developments in the decidedly urbane downtown arts underground. The stargazing clamor of the music reflects the intensity of a cultural crossroads where concrete and dust pervade any skyward view, from East 3rd Street to Mars and beyond. One of Sun Ra's rarest releases, it had negligible circulation through shops.

A versatile trumpeter able to navigate in both the Jazz and Latin music fields, Grammy Award winner Brian Lynch returns to the Criss Cross fold with ConClave Volume 2, a tour-de-force for his revamped Spheres of Influence ensemble. Up-and-comers Yosvany Terry on alto, Manuel Valera on piano, with bassist Luques Curtis, drummer Justin Brown, and percussionist Pedro Martinez make the scene for a diverse set of mainly Lynch originals. Mixing the Afro-Cuban beat with touches of samba and funk, Lynch comes up with his best concoction to date of spicy Latin sounds.

Kendrick Scott is one of the most sought-after drummers in the jazz world and has distinguished himself for several years with Terence Blanchard's Grammy-winning ensemble. Recently, in the fall of 2008 he toured the world as part of Herbie Hancock's famous band. He is the founder of World Culture Music, an artist collective and record label out of New York. Kendrick now makes his Criss Cross leader debut with Reverence, a stirring quintet session featuring Moreno on guitar, Blanchard band mate Derrick Hodge on bass, and the prodigious up-and-comers Walter Smith on tenor and Gerald Clayton on piano. Together, Kendrick and the band put their own stamp on classics by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ornette Coleman and more.

On Walk in the Woods, his latest Criss Cross leader date, Walt Weiskopfupholds the high standards he's set on his previous nine albums for the label. Here he leads a hand-picked octet, each of the five horns is a veteran section player with extraordinary improvisational skills, including Criss Cross veterans Andy Fusco and Gary Smulyan, propelled by a rhythm section comprising the extraordinary young drummer Kendrick Scott, best known as Terence Blanchard's drummer, and the harmonically informed pianist and bassist Peter Zak and Doug Weiss, through a suite of eight heady originals and a rearranged standard.

No New York area organist of the present day is more in demand than Gary Versace, who makes his Criss Cross debut with a quartet comprised of Criss Cross Label veterans: tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, guitarist Adam Rogers, and drummer Clarence Penn. Versace guides his group of New York cutting-edge players through a program of eight originals with strong melodies, challenging harmonic structures, and intoxicating grooves.

For Ralph Bowen's fourth date he returns to the organ combo format that made 2002's Soul Proprietor a significant departure and to the tenor saxophonist's catalog. Returning from that session are trumpeter John Swana, organist Sam Yahel, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Dana Hall. Bowen's muse is an advanced take on the freewheeling implications of John Coltrane's pioneering vernacular. He tackles the framework of the organ group with a fresh outlook that has more to do with the late 60s work of Larry Young than the approach of Jimmy Smith. In addition to the four of his own originals, Bowen puts a new spin on Woody Shaw's "Rahsaan's Run", Joe Henderson's "Step Lightly", and U2's "Drowning Man".

For his fourth Criss Cross leader date, alto saxophonist-composer David Binney convenes his primary New York working quartet of the 2000's (pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Eivind Opsvik, and drummer Dan Weiss), adds to the mix guitar hero Wayne Krantz, with whom he works frequently in an electronica-oriented group, and augments the proceedings with several appearances by British pianist-composer John Escreet, a frequent partner in recent years. The leader plays with deep emotion and the concision of an old master; it's as strong a date as any in Binney's now sizable discography.

Pianist David Kikoski, who's partnered so ably on past Criss Cross albums with horn men like Alex Sipiagin, Seamus Blake, Conrad Herwig and Wycliffe Gordon, is perhaps best known for a series of compelling trio albums he's recorded for the label over the past decade. Now along comes Almost Standards, on which he mixes it up with bassist Eric Revis (Betty Carter, Louis Hayes, Billy Harper and a bunch of Marsalis family members), and much-in-demand drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts (Branford Marsalis), and an invigorating presence on two earlier Kikoski CDs. The new album's a mix of material serving as takeoff points this time out: harmonically intriguing tunes that are already standards or probably ought to be.

For his sixth Criss Cross release, trumpeter Alex Sipiagin focuses more heavily on his own writing than on 2005's Returning. Clearly rooted in the jazz tradition, Sipiagin's compositions continue to evolve his distinctly modernistic approach to harmony, meter and form. Eminently approachable despite their inherent depth and complexity, Sipiagin's five compositions remain as focused and lyrical as his playing. Sipiagin reinvents Thelonious Monk's Epistrophy and Bill Evans' rarely covered Orbit (Unless It's You), both seamlessly fitting within his musical universe while remaining true to their essence. Prints is a definitive statement from an artist whose star continues to rise.

When it comes to New York's top-shelf gigs, few pianists get the job done like David Hazeltine. Much sought for his sensitivity as an accompanist, Hazeltine is also an inventive composer and arranger who is able to bring a fresh approach to the mainstream. For his eighth set as a leader for Criss Cross, the pianist brings his talents to the fore with three originals, including a dedicatory for Cedar. Rounding out the set are a few select standards including a new twist on Dizzy Gillespie's Tin Tin Deo. Longtime collaborators Eric Alexander (tenor sax), John Webber (bass), and Joe Farnsworth (drums) mix it up with expert vibist Steve Nelson for a colorful set that puts all of Hazeltine's wares on full display.

Embarking on his fourth project for Criss Cross, guitarist Adam Rogers departs from the quartet and quintet formats he explored on prior outings. This time his preference is a pared-down trio session. The virtuosic bass playing of Scott Colley, who has appeared on every Rogers led session to date, provides aesthetic continuity. On drums is the sought-after Bill Stewart, an incisive and unpredictable musician who has graced Criss Cross sessions by Peter Bernstein, Jesse Van Ruller and Jonathan Kreisberg. Included are such standards as "Without a Song," "I Loves You, Porgy," "Night and Day" and "Young and Foolish." Rogers preserves the integrity of these timeless melodies even as he mines them for new harmonic and formal insights. Rogers also premieres four original compositions.

A fixture on the New York scene since 2003, when he accepted a scholarship at the Julliard School of Music, Norwegian guitarist Lage Lund, who won the prestigious Thelenoious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2005, displays what the the fuss is about on his Criss Cross debut. Featuring tenor saxophonist Marcus Strickland, pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Orlando LeFleming and drummer Kendrick Scott.

With Generations, his eighth Criss Cross outing as a leader, trumpeter Alex Sipiagin honors the legacy of the great Woody Shaw, with five stellar pieces from Shaw's repertoire and balancing the program with four originals. The quartet lineup here Sipiagin, guitarist Adam Rogers, bassist Boris Kozlov, drummer Antonio Sanchez at one time formed the core of the brilliant Michael Brecker Sextet. Together, these four players bring years worth of mutual collaborative experience to the music at hand. Woody Shaw himself appeared just once on Criss Cross, lending his extraordinary horn voice to Introducing Kenny Garrett (CRC 1014) in 1985. Shaw's influence has long been implicit in Sipiagin's playing - not only in the Russian-born trumpeter's work as a leader, but also in his scorching solos with Dave Holland's Big Band and Octet, the Mingus Big Band, the late Michael Brecker's Sextet and Quindectet and many more. With Generations Sipiagin makes his debt to Shaw more explicit, but he approaches these canonical works with his own individuality and imagination foremost in mind, in the determined spirit of Shaw's song title: Beyond All Limits.