The latest CD releases reviewed

DENA DEROSE
Live at Jazz Standard Vol 1 MaxJazz ***

Singer/pianist DeRose is neither an innovator nor a markedly individual performer in either of her incarnations; she's just very good at what she does: standards, with the odd original thrown in. DeRose can also blow away most other piano players, and her trio, with the masterful drummer Matt Wilson, gyrating round the solid core of Martin Wind's bass, is impressively tight. Constantly driven by Wilson, DeRose's piano solos have an inventive, spur-of- the-moment feel, even when she does her trademark unison vocal/piano lines. And, on a very consistent album, she swings compulsively, as the grooving It Could Happen to You and Green Dolphin Street ebulliently prove.

A bonus is tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm's distinctive, Joe Lovano-like presence on I Fall in Love Too Easily. Either way, DeRose is the real deal for aficionados of this kind of jazz. www.maxjazz.com

FERENC SNÉTBERGER
Nomad enja ****

Snétberger is a virtuoso acoustic guitarist who, despite a CV that includes Markus Stockhausen, Dusko Goykovich, Ernie Wilkins, Bobby McFerrin, Pat Metheny and Dhafer Youssef, isn't nearly as well known as he should be. This lovely CD, made in 2004, marks the recorded debut of the exceptional trio with Arild Andersen (bass) and Paolo Vinaccia (drums) that Snétberger brings here next week for a Music Network tour. The music, mostly composed by him, reflects his acknowledged influences and interests - Jim Hall, Egberto Gismonti and JS Bach, with Spanish, Indian and southern European undercurrents. Somehow, Snétberger draws them all into a compellingly personal synthesis of great lyric beauty, in which Vinaccia is a marvellous colourist, Andersen simply magnificent and Snétberger a musician of singularly fecund melodic imagination. Replete with spare, musical use of electronics, Nomad combines depth with accessibility. www.enjarecords.com

CARL SAUNDERS
The Lost Bill Holman Charts MAMA ***

Commissioned by an occasional saxophonist (and full-time geologist!) for a septet more than 25 years ago, these Holman charts remained unrecorded and all but forgotten until trumpeter Carl Saunders heard of them. Assembling a stellar band, including Pete Christlieb (tenor), Bob Efford (baritone), Andy Martin (trombone), Christian Jacob (piano) and himself, Saunders put flesh on some of Holman's most exuberantly inventive writing.

There are imaginatively gleeful deconstructions of three standards (Dearly Beloved, We'll Be Together Again, Three Little Words), affectionate reimaginings of Gillespie's Ow and Duke's All Too Soon, and typically eventful Holman originals. If anything, the charts are almost carried away by incident, but the crispness of execution makes light of their intricacy, and the soloists are all top echelon West Coasters. www.mamajazz.org