Bill Mahar

Two high–powered studio sessions (from 1997 and last November) presided over by Canadian drummer Bernard Primeau, the first of which is enhanced by the prolific talents of American trombonist Ray Anderson. The second, Un Soufflé Latin (whose name speaks for itself, even in French), represents a comeback of sorts, as Primeau was diagnosed in 1998 with thyroid cancer. Has his brush with death slowed him down? Listen for yourself.

It may have been the title of her last album—Treelines, Christine Jensen's first large ensemble recording—but there was no song of that name on the 2010 Justin Time release. Instead, it's the lead-off to Habitat, Jensen's second album with her Jazz Orchestra, a commissioned work for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jazz Orchestra, its director, Dr. Paul Haar, looking for the Canadian saxophonist/composer to continue the strong work begun on Treelines.

Christine Jensen leads the Orchestre national de jazz de Montréal in two large-scale works. First off comes a composition by Jensen herself – a five-movement work that pays tribute to great jazz artists who helped fashion her own style as both composer and improviser: John Coltrane, Lee Konitz, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Wheeler, and Jan Jarczyk (her first teacher).Then we hear a suite from Gershwin’s immortal opera Porgy and Bess in an arrangement by Gil Evans. This is the suite recorded by Miles Davis and his band, conducted by Evans, and released to great acclaim in 1959. It was one of the finest collaborations between Evans and Davis, and has gone down in jazz history as a monument of orchestral jazz. All the opera’s best-known numbers are here, including Bess, you is my woman now, It ain’t necessarily so, There’s a boat that’s leaving soon for New York, and of course Summertime.