* Charlie Hunter - "Natty Dread" (cover of the classic Bob Marley release of the same name)

I have checked out some of the modern age jazz albums suggested by Salon readers here, and for the most part have been singularly unimpressed, but this one caught my eye as I have the original Marley Natty Dread album, and, in fact, all of Marley's albums, which are a great joy.

My firs reaction was to think that if you wanted to produce a jazz version of a Marley album, you would go with Kaya for mellowness, or Survival for passion and great tunes, but be that as it may, this album isn't half bad--based on short samples I have heard.

At least they have got the right idea. In the original incarnation of jazz, the name of the game was to take popular songs and produce enhanced versions that would delight those who knew the original songs. For example, try Mack the Knife by Sonny Rollins on Saxophone Colossus, and then try Ella's version.

Personally I love the songs of Cole Porter, like Got You Under My Skin, of which I have more than 20 versions, or I Get A Kick Out of You, and last night I was listening as I was driving to the supermarket to a gloriously distorted rendition of skin by Red Norvo on vibes, Tal Farlow on guitar, and Charles Mingus on bass. So much so that I was still dancing around Wal*Mart to the vibe as I collected my groceries.

So just the very idea of someone doing a subversive jazz version of reggae classics excited me. This seems to me exactly what modern day jazz artists OUGHT to be doing. Maybe some jazz versions of Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes, or the Abba musical too.

These connections to standards are what helps to connect to audiences. In this case any Marley fan will at least sit up and take notice.

Is the Hunter album any good? Well I was only able to listen to short samples, and it sounded a little bland for my tastes, but I didn't hear it all, and it has been well reviewed. I'm not really sure whether he has succeeded in putting a new spin on these tunes.

Anyway, it is a great idea.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B000005H6C

I shouldn't type late at night with the flu.

And "jazz setting" reveals the limitations of the thought here. Those arrangements were improvised, irregular jazz setting in the modern idiom. Fusion if you will. The bass line on Maria is a quote of an earlier Tito Puente jazz song,a nd so on.

It doesn't have to be stolid COle Porter to be jazz. It has to be improvised within a mode or frame. It can even sound like pop.

For the jazz musicians I know, that album is jazz. That some don't consider it jazz shows you how the idiom has become codified to some people, but not working musicians.

More thoughts... Jazz and Rock seem to have a lot to say to each other and Joni Mitchell, whom is not afraid to fuse and experiment, did just that with 'Shadows & Light' and 'Mingus.' This must be why Herbie Hancock answered in kind with 'River'. Speaking of Pop & Jazz, Suzanne Vega has come out with a new album on Blue Note. Listening to a few bits and pieces, I didn't find it very alluring. But maybe I should listen to it again.

I can attest to the snobbery part, as I've been at the crap end of the stick a few times with that one - because I didn't fit into those particular snobs' "Jazz Aesthetic."

And I have thought of a few artists nowadays that I can fit a face to their music and that's Diana Krall and Micheal Bublé. There are many "long distance runners" in the business, as Joni Mitchell put it.

It doesn't have to be stolid COle Porter to be jazz. It has to be improvised within a mode or frame. It can even sound like pop.

Well first, Cole Porter is anything but stolid. His lyrics are often outrageous, witty, with amazing rhymes and memorable tunes. The reason so many of his songs are jazz standards is that jazz musicians recognized how brilliant his songs were and wanted to play them, and the public wanted to hear them just as they had heard them in the movies.

But the point is not who wrote the original tune, the point is that the jazz player puts a new twist on the tune, making the listener hear it anew, delighting the listener. That is pretty much my definition of jazz.

To say that Santana's album Supernatural is jazz is just ridiculous, because it just isn't. If professional musicians are telling you that is a jazz album and you are believing it, then I have a bridge...

Get some rest, take Tylenol, and plenty of fluids. Listen to some jazz. Read a basic book about jazz.

If you like Miles Davis and Chet Baker's style of trumpet playing get Enrico Ravi's recent albums, such as Tati.

If you like Cole Porter tunes, then On Broadway Vol. 1 by Paul Motian is what you need. With guitarist Bill Frisell, saxophonist Joe Lovano, and bassist Charlie Haden, it has some very unique settings for a few of Cole Porter's standard, and some others.

For some unique avant-garde / folk music collaborations, get Requiem for a Dying Planet by Ernst Reijseger. The music on this CD was used in a couple of Werner Herzog films. If fact, you can hear some cello solos by Reijseger in Herzog's recent Rescue Dawn. This recording has extremely heartfelt music with the Sardinian voice choir Tenore e Cuncordo de Orosei and Mola Sylla, an amazing Senegalese singer. Reijseger has other CDs with each of these groups. He also has played straight ahead jazz in the Cluson trio and a few other projects. Since some people are more disposed to hear vocal music than instrumental, with the two different vocal styles and configurations, one from a choir of singers, the other a soloist, you have a very inviting album.