Sadao Watanabe is one of the top alto saxophonists in the jazz world for the last six decades. He, along with Phil Woods, Eric Dolphy and Cannonball Adderly, is one of the top successors to the legacy of Charlie Parker. Sadao has put out many great records over the years and has worked with some of the best musicians that the US and Japan have to offer, but he is also known for putting on some commercial fare, more than likely to help pay the bills, which leads us to 1986’s “Good Time for Love”. The mid-80s were not a great time for jazz, commercial interests had taken over and saccharine smooth jazz was dominating the jazz charts. There is a lengthy list of musicians involved on this album and you may recognize many names from the US, Japan and Jamaica. About half the album is okay smooth jazz, with the other half just being way too sweet and vacuous for consumption.

Lets look at some of the better tracks. The album opener shares the same title as the album and is a decent reggae groove. It helps that they have some top notch Jamaican musicians on board as few things sound worse than badly played reggae. “Loving You is Easy” is a good funky soul jazz number and may be the best cut on the album except for the Caribbean groove of “Pogo”. “Pogo” is the only track on the album that just seems to end too soon. “Step Out on the Street” is okay smooth jazz RnB, but the rest of the album is pretty sappy and hits a low with “When We Make a Home”. This one actually has cringe vocals and the sort of lyrics you could imagine that would go with a song title like that. Overall, this is an okay smooth jazz record if you like that sort of thing, but if you like the real jazz, Watanabe has some much better albums out there.

“Blues for Vita” is saxophonist Paul Carlon’s sixth album as a leader and finds him mining similar material as his previous albums, that is a mix of Latin jazz and hard bop with some modern tendencies toward the abstract. This is very much NYC music and it strikes a nice balance between tradition and modern sounds. Paul cites trumpeter Woody Shaw as a major influence, as well as the soul jazz meets bebop saxophone work of Gene Ammons. Joining Paul on this album is a crew of New York heavyweights with similar backgrounds in Latin music and jazz, probably the most recognizable name in the bunch is bassist and co-producer Harvie S, who seems to be about everywhere these days. Most of these songs are fairly concise as far as jazz goes, its nice that every song does not feature a solo by everyone in the group, a practice that can bog things down. The solos stretch out just enough, but not so much that the songs lose their drive.

Lots of good tracks on here, “Dee Dot” which kicks things off is a high energy post bop scorcher with just the right amount of “Latin tinge”. “Colored Paper” is Latin soul jazz that would sound right at home on a Eddie Harris album, and sometimes sounds like the second coming of “Wade in the Water”. The album’s title track is gritty New York jazz blues, and the ‘Vita” in the song title is actually Lavita, Paul’s wife and also the beautiful woman featured on the cover of the album. Carlon’s interest in Woody Shaw styled energetic modernisms show up on “Isabel the Liberator” and “Unmute”.

Oliver Lake was an early participant in the St Louis avant-garde scene, and later a major figure in the NYC loft scene of the early 70s. By the time the late 70s rolled around, he like so many others in the free jazz movement, were starting to diversify their sound as free jazz was becoming a bit predictable. This leads us to the album, “Life Dance of Is”, a mostly avant-garde collection with a good dose of free jazz, but also some other interesting eclecticisms. It’s a very talented band that Oliver assembled here, many of these musicians he had worked with before and would continue to perform with in the future. We have Michael Gregory Jackson on guitar, Anthony Davis on piano, Pheeroan ak Laff on drums and some tracks include Leonard Jones on bass.

The album opens with the sparse sounds of “Rite-Ing” in which various band members play composed snatches of melody in between long moments of silence. Follow up track “Comous” is a little more in the free jazz tradition, but implied beats give this one a funhouse rowdy nature, like a hard bop jam gone insane. Side one closes out with “Shu-Ful” another fun one that has the band playing to a punky two beat shuffle and laying down wacky solos. Oliver seems to be channeling Eric Dolphy on this one.

Side two opens with “Tfon” and an impossibly difficult ensemble bebop line before the group lays into some free improv. Towards the end, Anthony Davis plays what sounds like a closing phrase but then keeps repeating it as the others join in hammering this phrase to death. “Change One” is a one chord reggae vamp with some weird vocals from Lake and bluesy country harmonica from Jackson. The album closes with a spoken word collage that would sound right at home in a modern concert hall setting. Interesting album, sometimes dry and intellectual, and at other times boisterous and funny. This may not have ever been re-issued on CD or in any other format, so look for it where used vinyl is sold.

Although “Three Chord Monte” is only his third album as a leader, guitarist Tony Romano has been working as a sideman for sometime with jazz, Latin and pop artists such as Randy Brecker, Dave Valentin, Joe Bataan, Stanley Jordan and even Debbie Gibson. He can also be heard on many TV soundtracks as well. Tony wrote all of the material on this album and he enlisted Jennifer Vincent on bass and Rob Garcia on drums to help him out. Saxophonist Paul Carlon shows up on about half of the songs as well. Tony cites Bill Frisell as a major influence which will be obvious to those who know Bill’s work, but you can also hear some John Scofield in some of Romano’s funky riffing and contemporary melodic style.

The album opens strong with the Afrobeat groove of “Cadillac Green”, on which you can hear drummer Rob Garcia’s appreciation for Fela’s long time drummer, Tony Allen. As Romano builds his solo he digs into some hardcore Prince style funk riffs, this one is a scorcher. Later on the album, “Lay it Down”, re-visit’s the Tony Allen Afrobeat drive. The Frisell influence shows up on several melodic ballads, the best of which is “Home”, because this one gives Tony more room to stretch out on a solo. The band gets into their jazzy post bop thing on a couple numbers and “Onward and Upward” features some of sax man Paul Carlon’s best work. Romano’s extensive work in Latin jazz shows up on a couple tracks and “Squirrelly” gets into some bluesy RnB with a New Orleans backline beat. All of the tracks are well composed and executed with imagination, but for my money, I would love to hear Tony get into some more of that groovy Afrobeat thang.

After starting his recording career working with larger groups, in 2010 pianist Dave Bass decided he wanted to record in a trio format. As Dave explains it, “The spotlight is on each player, forcing you to play at the highest level. But its also the most satisfying configuration, because you can really develop a kind of telepathy with the other musicians:”. This year’s release, “Trio Nuevo”, is Dave’s fourth album in a trio format and presents his Nuevo trio, Tyler Miles on double bass and Steve Helfand on drums. The telepathic interplay that Bass talks about is on full display here. Tyler’s bass is almost on an equal footing with Dave’s piano as Tyler is apt to present melodies solo on the arco bass, or in harmony with Dave. Likewise, both bass and drums are afforded ample solo space as well as a place in the conversation when trading bars.

Along with being active in the SF bay area jazz scene, Dave also plays his share of Latin gigs and his Latin influences are very apparent on many of the tracks. Both “Sandino” and “Gone” have a tango like influence, only played in a very forceful and aggressive style. Bass’ Afro-Cuban style piano buildup is particularly appealing on “Sandino”. The up tempo “Baby Melon” sounds like classic west coast jazz with its brush work on the drums and double time feel. Likewise, Dave’s interest in contrapuntal lines on his “Three Views of Bach”, also recalls the sound of classic west coast cool. Today’s modern abstract sound are represented with “These Times” and a cover of Andrew Hill’s “Duplicity”. Dave presents an Ahmad Jamal type elegance on ballads such as, “As Time Goes By” and “One Look”.