Jay Walkin' Specific***

London-based young Canadian trumpeter, Jay Phelps, who emerged internationally with Empirical's award-winning, innovative post-bop mix of jazz, classical and African music, names Armstrong, Navarro, Brown and Davis as influences. But in the creatively skewed hard bop climate of his leader debut, with young lions like Shabaka Hutchings (tenor/ clarinets) and Karl Rasheed- Abel (bass), and the liberal experience of Gene Calderazzo (drums) and Jonathan Gee (piano), he's instantly identifiable. If his fresh, quirky solos sometimes flirt with discontinuity, they have the same offbeat individuality as his attractive original compositions, their capacity for surprise refreshing the Afro beat of Six Degrees of Separationand the equally multi-faceted 10 Years On. And his go-for-it attitude sees him take on works by Jackie McLean and Tchaikovsky with equal aplomb. See specificjazz.com