Suspended Night sees the Polish trumpet maestro Tomasz Stanko raising his art to a further plateau of lyric perfection in European jazz. Featuring the same trio of young, excellently attuned Poles who distinguished themselves on the 2002 Soul of Things-Marcin Masilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (bass) and Michal Miskiewicx (drums)-Suspended Night is an album of burnished beauty, of mostly mellow, yet utterly compelling melody, texture and mood. The spacious, flowing reveries of the opening "Song for Sarah", where Masilewski's lambent touch and dynamic sensitivity are as remarkable as the leader's soulful breadth and depth of tone and phrase, set the tone for the 10 diversely conceived "Suspended Variations" that follow. The variations constitute the bulk of this superbly recorded 70-minute work and some of them, such as variations 2, 5 and 8, project a fair amount of polyrhythmic heat. Overall, however, the music is largely remarkable for its fruitful, complementary tempering of those flaring extremes of sound and rhythmic accent that have often characterised Stanko. The result is perhaps the most affecting example to date of the naked yet literate art of this utterly distinctive musician: certainly, the combination of Slavic soulfulness, melodic and rhythmic intelligence and-above all-poetic courage makes Suspended Night a release to treasure. -Michael Tucker.

It's been six years since these same performers got together to create one of the decade's more unusual experiments in musical alchemy. Beginning with the raw materials of early music and modern jazz, the four male voices of the Hilliard Ensemble joined with jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek to see what would happen when the proper measure of old music and new style were combined, shaped by the performers' considerable experience and collective aesthetic vision. The success of that recording, titled Officium, together with subsequent concert performances, paved the way for this second effort, continuing the performers' search for artistically meaningful, musically satisfying combinations of written music and improvisatory elements. The odd title of the new recording comes from a mystical poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, quoted in the liner notes and accompanied by pictures from Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Officium aficionados will notice that Mnemosyne is even more adventurous in its explorations, which range farther and farther from the printed page. Musical fragments and a general outline are the starting points for several pieces. Improvisation is more frequently and freely employed, but always adheres to an agreed stylistic framework. Alongside a Tallis hymn or a chant by Hildegard, we hear Iroquois and Peruvian song fragments, an ancient Greek tune, and a beautiful lullaby by Veljo Tormis. Garbarek's tasteful improvisations are appropriate additions and inspired commentaries. The Hilliards are even better than on Officium; their awareness and sensitivity brings everything together into a truly unified expression that shows the timelessness of music and reminds us that where rhythm, melody, and musical imagination join, different styles, centuries and genres are not necessarily obstacles to compatibility. [+]

Mel Gibson may learn what women want by listening in on their thoughts, but it doesn't take an eavesdropper to know what moviegoers expect in a romantic-comedy soundtrack. Nancy Meyers, the movie's director and soundtrack album executive producer, has compiled an interesting mix of old and new, borrowed and blue. The emphasis is on the pre-rock age of big-band swing, whether it's performers from that era or others emulating them. Three cuts from Frank Sinatra (arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle) and entries from Sammy Davis Jr, Nancy Wilson and Tony Bennett sew up the soulful crooning of the velvet age. Lou Rawls and the Temptations replace their modern soul grooves with lush orchestrations that perfectly fit the mood. Only teeny-dance-bopper Christina Aguilera and alternative rocker Meredith Brooks, who chime in with a couple of recent hits, sound woefully out of place. -Rob O'Connor.