I'm always raving about the taste of the Chesky label, and this ranges through the artists they have under contract (who, mostly, play in an understated, unornamented style), and the excellence of their audio engineering. Well, they've done it again with this album of covers by The Jazz Kamerata. The Kamerata is made up of a piano, a flute, a clarinet, a string quartet (two violins, one viola, and a cello), a bass viol, and a saxophonist who plays soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones on various numbers of this album. They get a very chamber-jazz sound. There are no drums, not at all like Bach in Jacques Loussier's style; but rather something autumnal, something free-floating and dreamy. Dare I say French Impressionistic chamber jazz? Maybe a new kind of jazz, with its roots in Duke Ellington, who wrote complex harmonic arrangements that had to be played exactly as written, yet left enough room for his soloists to take (short) rides. The individual "cuts" (Can you have a cut without a stylus?) are all arranged by the leader, Carlos Franzetti, so they are products of his sensibilities, and they wind up having some similarities that might surprise their composers. These very laid-back presentations also remind me of the mellower ballads on the "Charlie Parker With Strings" albums. That is to say, there is a very harmonically sophisticated quality to this music, which comes across without being in-your-face. It is another of the Chesky albums you might put on repeat mode and listen to all day, sometimes, just to get to know it better.

This kind of music is not hard-driving straight-ahead bop. Even the pieces that were somewhat hard-edged originally have been treated by Franzetti to have his pensive, relaxed "sound." The ten cuts, and their composers are: Circle - Miles Davis; Nefertiti - Wayne Shorter; Last Year's Waltz - Steve Kuhn; Quiet Rising - Pat Metheny; Allison's Dance - Carlos Franzetti; When Autumn Comes - Clare Fischer; Prism - Keith Jarret; Van Gogh - Eugenio Toussaint; Very Early - Bill Evans; Elegia - Claus Ogerman. I think that's a pretty impressive line up. I think the tunes were selected to make a kind of "Suite." And to my surprise, it works, even if it is a tad elegiac. O.K. So, what do we have? I think we have a jazz pianist, sax player, and bassist who front a back up group of strings, flute, and clarinet in playing some slick arrangements of thoughtful, almost melancholy jazz. It is very introspective, as many of the titles suggest. If you're not careful you could spend many hours listening to this album. I have. (Ye Olde Editor would agree with Charles; this SACD really pulled me into a groove. Chesky scores big-time here.)