This one keeps you guessing: what on earth will the next track be like? It gets off to an uneven start: “Samba De Aztac” (a tribute to a Salvadoran artists’ collective) is a tad bombastic, and I’m not so sure about “Reincarnation 1968,” either, an homage to 1960s counterculture featuring a vocal chorus of “Hare Ram” and nods to Pharoah Sanders and Country Joe and the Fish. But then the album settles down with a jaunty reading of Mingus’s “Remember Rockefeller at Attica ,” and following a pair of nice originals there’s a memorable take on Monk’s “Rhythm-a-ning,” with pianist Eli Yamin injecting stealthy commentaries into drummers Andy Demos and Marty Beller’s doublebarrelled groove. Weill’s “September Song” becomes an unusually effective 9/11 memorial, the melody slowly buried under tremulous layers of dissonance, in the manner of a Crispell ballad performance. There’s nothing earthshaking here, perhaps, but it’s hard not to like an album which can jump from “Come On (Let the Good Times Roll)” to Sun Ra’s “Love in Outer Space,” and whose program includes a blues in honour of the late great Walter Perkins.

Good stuff, even if it isn't necessarily what I expected when I saw the CD cover, a montage of the band members under red spotlights, hard at work. Look at the title and one might think, "Get your oxygen mask on--time to get on outside with Outer Spaceways Incorporated!" But though the much-missed Sun Ra's "Love in Outer Space" is covered here, there's a much more in feel, however elastic it might be. Mingus's "Remember Rockefeller at Attica" gets a rootsy bit of a go, the band underlining Le Grand Charles's debt to Cole Porter in the melody (you'll figure out what song). Skip ahead a few tracks to Yamin's original, "Waltz on the Hudson," and you'll wonder what Marx Brothers movie this bouncy lovesong melody is in. Classic pre-Tin Pan Alley, and delightful support from Demos's tubs. I also can't fault Demos's literate snare work during a jolly run-thru of Monk's "Rhythm-a-ning." If Solar has any main connotation I'd say McCoy Tyner's mid-to-late 1960s trios--you know, before he started using those muscular Jacob's ladder left-hand vamps he was into for a while. Bernstein's "Samba de Aztac," this CD's opener, starts with some of that Lonnie Liston Smith cascading piano and drums, downshifting smoothly into a bopping continuum made to show off Yamin's very estimable chops. In fact, the take of Kurt Weill's "September Song" makes me think of one method Tyner might have used to cover it, though to my mind I don't recall if he has yet. A lot of what-ifs here, all diverting. It's only fair to mention Bernstein's cheerfully plump bass extensions, on best display during "Rockefeller" (appropriately enough) and the stupefyingly in take of the Ra song. Well, we remember how Sonny Blount decided in his later years that it was time to bring the Arkestra back into orbit about Earth again (you can only write "The Utter Nots" once), but I would never have expected anybody to rescore "Love" to the point that Bill Evans might have used this arrangement. Very nice! Jazz is the sound of surprise, after all (thanks, Whitney Balliett), and that track is the most notable of the new year. I don't know how far out Solar is actually capable of getting, but you will enjoy the aural view from here. Kennet Egbert - Jazznow.com

 CD Review More than ever before, the younger generation of jazz players emerging are incorporating influences far and wide. While new forms of jazz have always revolved around taking earlier forms and moving them forward, never before have the number of musical choices been so great as to engender an unprecedented eclecticism. Groups like Sweden s E.S.T. incorporate subtle shadings from electronica, even while they are influenced in a big way by European impressionism and the music of Keith Jarrett -- representing a lack of purity that Jarrett, himself, would find completely objectionable, yet resulting in a distinctive group sound where the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.  Solar -- the trio of pianist Eli Yamin, bassist Adam Bernstein and percussionist/saxophonist Andy Demos -- has an even more panoramic view. One doesn t have to hear their African-informed interpretation of Rhythm-a-ning to know that their occasionally idiosyncratic approach owes a certain debt to Thelonious Monk. And while their interpretation of Charles Mingus Remember Rockefeller at Attica, features an intro that is more Cecil Taylor than Don Pullen, by the time they are into the meat of the tune, they are blending a clear knowledge of Mingus with a slightly skewed sense of rhythm that sounds distinctly retro and, at the same time, current. Yamin s Waltz on the Hudson is more straightforward, with the kind of grace the exhibits a clear link to Ellington, and the kind of physical swing that could only come from some serious time wood-shedding the genre.  And jazz isn t their only source of inspiration. Their version of Earl King s R&B hit, Come On, might be considered faithful if it weren t interpreted as a vehicle for only drums, bass and voice. Yamin s own Reincarnation 1968, with its kirtan chanting harkens back to a hippie era long past when, at best, Yamin, Bernstein and Demos were toddlers but, more likely than not, not even a twinkle in their parents eyes. And yet, Solar manage to capture the vibe and bring it into a more exploratory space, blending rock rhythms and Demo s George Adams-informed tenor solo.  Perhaps it s the availability of so much music to these younger players that encourages them to liberally mix and match styles. Bernstein s opener, Samba De Aztac evokes images of Salvador, made all the more poignant by Demos militaristic rhythms. The spiritual closer, Sun Ra s Love in Outer Space, is lighter and more elegant than its source, with Bernstein providing an insistently lyrical foundation and Yamin s eloquence gently supported by Demos unobtrusive brushwork.  Groups that place their influences so vividly on their musical sleeves run the risk of losing sight of their own identity; and Solar do seem a little on the schizophrenic side at times. Still, though they mix free playing with tender lyricism, the deeply serious with the blatantly humorous, and traditional jazz forms with styles farther afield, Solar manages to create a consistent statement, where the common elements are spirited interplay, vivid imagination and powerful intention.

... a pared down Liberation Music Orchestra....Jaki Byard trio.....and the Bad Plus.... this CD is full of surprises, and they keep you listening...