Jenny Levine

Levine’s legacy at the Met will be defined in part by the works he has introduced to its repertory. These include not only Berg’s “Lulu’’ but also Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,’’ that brilliantly synthetic score that seems to distill the musical essence of Weimar Berlin while serving up a scorching social and political critique that still resonates today.

This excellent session (recorded at Half Moon Bay in 1976) features trumpeter Blue Mitchell with four Northern California musicians: the obscure Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonist Mike Morris, pianist Mark Levine, bassist Kenny Jenkins and drummer Smiley Winters. The repertoire is fresh, consisting of a nearly 17-minute "Pleasure Bent," the warm ballad "Portrait of Jenny," a song called "Sweet Smiley Winters" that is really a "Sweet Georgia Brown" line penned decades earlier by Coleman Hawkins, Levine's "Something Old, Something Blue" and a brief "Blues Theme." Mitchell is heard in prime form throughout the enjoyable straightahead set which contains a few subtle surprises.

In an era when the country's first line of defense, intelligence, is more important than ever, this story opens the CIA's infamous closed doors and gives an insider's view into the Agency: how trainees are recruited, how they are prepared for the spy game, and what they learn to survive. James Clayton might not have the attitude of a typical recruit, but he is one of the smartest graduating seniors in the country - and he's just the person that Walter Burke wants in the Agency.