Leon Parker
Jazz-trained but hewing to no genre, drummer Parker, 31, is blessed with a rare gift: originality. He starts with the simplest elements, a finger-tap on a conga drum or a woodblock's rich clop, and builds beautifully complex grooves. As a composer (he wrote or cowrote six of these nine pieces), Parker dreams up spare but catchy melodies that float above the symphony of rhythm. The superb Tom Harrell (trumpet) and Steve Wilson (alto saxophone) each solo beautifully on the slinky "Ray of Light" and on the title song, a funky blues. Another highlight is a track that begins as a lilting Afro-Brazilian tune before you realize that it's actually Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood," stripped down and reconfigured into something mysterious, compulsively listenable and new. (Columbia)
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