Shadowed Lover

Alto saxophonist/composer McPherson has been playing masterful bop and its extensions for several decades. He shows no signs of slowing down with this extraordinary set of eight compositions, half that he wrote, split into two bop or bop-informed standards, two low-key numbers, two in the mid-rhythmic range, and two modal ostinato-based figures as vehicles for improvising. All are spiced by the bubbling conga playing of Bobby Sanabria and solidly reinforced by the battleship dense musings of pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Ray Drummond, and drummer Victor Lewis, an undeniably brilliant backing ensemble. Listen to the fluidity of McPherson's on any of these cuts, and you'll know why he remains the eminent extension of Charlie Parker.

Jimmy Smith single-handedly reinvented the Hammond organ in a modern jazz setting, and given the many Hammond players who have followed in his wake, most of them working off of the same template that Smith established way back in the early 1950s, it is easy to forget how amazingly brilliant he was on his chosen instrument, as innovative in his own way as Charlie Parker was on sax or Thelonious Monk on piano. Although he is chiefly known for his soul-jazz blues trios, Smith had a wider musical palette than that, as this fine reissue (with four bonus tracks), originally released by Blue Note in 1956, makes clear…