MUSIC IN MOTION

"If jazz is to keep moving forward, all the musical styles in jazz history have to be advanced while including musical styles outside the jazz realm." When the youthful leader of this date offers this analysis, you can just imagine his famous older brother--trumpeter, educator, and band leader Wynton Marsalis--edging warily away. But, combined with his stone-cold technique and jumping-bean energy, that kind of thinking makes drummer Jason Marsalis--the baby of his jazz-knighted clan--perhaps the family's most musically intrepid member. Music in Motion offers a case in point, with several inventive compositions, a feisty pair of young saxists (John Ellis, Derek Douget) in the front line, and effective use of Marsalis's own ferocious soloing. Marsalis doesn't just pepper his improvisations with his firm command of drum rudiments; he often makes them the foundation of his solos--risky business unless you can apply the imagination he shows here. Marsalis wrote all 10 tunes on the disc, and several deserve to stick around. The best example of his musical philosophy is the whimsically titled "It Came from the Planet of Nebtoon." Placed against a polyrhythmic shuffle, the melody echoes Charlie Parker's famous "Parker's Blues," but the solos reference Ornette Coleman, big brother Branford, and Weather Report. The album features a couple of annoying quirks of the sort that run in the family: inside-joke liner notes (written by one "Li'l Man Jake, proofread by Jalmoose") and an extra track that shows up nearly 90 seconds after the last listed track has ended. But, in general, Jason seems much less self-indulgent than the rest of the brood--a musician for whom the music speaks strongly enough to preclude just about everything else. --Neil Tesser