Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz.

At Carnegie Hall the Preservation Hall Jazz Band showed how easily it could hop from era to era. It could work like a rhythm-and-blues horn section or a tightly arranged little big band if need be, but it could also switch back into the polyphonic glories of vintage New Orleans jazz, in which nearly every instrument seems to improvise around the tune at the same time.

Baikida Carroll, whose balance of bravada and tenderness, facility and understatement mark him as a player to be reckoned with.

Booker T. Jones sounds more pithy and forceful than ever on “Potato Hole”…Mr. Jones still jabs terse, unhurried melodies that sound as if he knows the lyrics but would never tell. Where the M.G.’s suavely underplayed their aggression, the rockers’ multiple-guitar attack, with distortion and feedback, gives the music teeth.

Wynton Marsalis' skills have grown as fast as his ambition, and he is the most ambitious younger composer in Jazz.

[Loco De Amor is] a euphoric, melodic romp across the hemisphere... A joyful, fun musician's record from a really good guitarist

Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz.