New Jazz Records

Randy Weston Live at the Fivespot

(United Artists). A man guffaws, the audience cackles, and Pianist Weston and group are off on High Fly. Manhattan's Five Spot Cafe, where this recording was made, apparently attracts some of the most indefatigable gabblers on the club circuit, but what cuts across the vocal static is well worth listening to, especially Billy Strayhorn's Star Crossed Lovers (the only tune not by Weston), a plaintive exercise for sax and piano.

"Bird" Is Free (Charlie Parker; Charlie Parker Records). Saxophonist Parker was recorded at a concert dance in 1950, and despite the background murmur, he comes through warm and clear. His eloquent solos--particularly in This Time the Dream's on Me and in his own Moose the Mooche--have withered not a jot.

Like Tweet (Columbia). The idea is cute and corny: eleven songs with themes that take off from the tunes of far-out birds like the purple finch and the wood pewee. "I suddenly realized,'' writes Jazzman Eddie Hall, "that birds blow the greatest riffs ever created." The band has an airy bounce, and the wonder of it all is that a few birds, notably the Baltimore oriole, come out of it almost as well as they went in.

The Explosive Piano of Herman Foster (Epic). Pianist Foster chops out brutish chords with a macelike hand in Yesterdays, contributes a sweet and swinging solo to Like Someone in Love, and generally comports himself like a man with something to say.

Just Blues (Memphis Slim; Prestige). A collection of original blues by a singer with a voice alive with meaningful inflections. The laments are universal: "Ah walked into a beer tavern To give a girl a nice time Ah had forty-five dollars when ah entered. When ah lef, ah only had one dime. Was she a beer-drinkin' woman? Don't you know, man, don't you know!"

Swing Classics (Lionel Hampton and his jazz groups; RCA Victor). A collection of some of the hallelujah blasts--Whoa Babe, Central Avenue Breakdown, Jivin' with Jarvis--that made Hampton tall on the bandstand back in the late '30s, when most of these tracks were recorded. The assorted personnel--Benny Carter, Dizzy Gillespie. Coleman Hawkins, Jess Stacy--are first-rate, and the unremitting frenzy of their attack is a fine antidote to the cool moods of modern chamber jazz.

Djangology (Django Reinhardt; RCA Victor). The late great gypsy guitarist in previously unreleased recordings made in Rome in 1949-50. Three of Reinhardt's four companions are Italian jazzmen--not members of the Quintet of The Hot Club of France, as the album cover claims--and they go about as far in international understanding as a rhythm section can go. As for Reinhardt. in such numbers as Bricktop, Beyond the Sea and his own Djangology, he is by turns piquant and fiery, still a master at gracefully dandling a tune.

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