Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Monterey Moods

With the recent Mack Avenue albums New York, New Sound and In My Time, the octogenarian American composer and bandleader Gerald Wilson has confirmed the awesome firepower he still commands - both as a writer and a hirer of some of the best soloists. This one celebrates Wilson's long association with the Monterey jazz festival through a seven-part suite, with a formidable band including saxophonists Antonio Hart and Ron Blake, trumpeters Jon Faddis, Terell Stafford and Sean Jones, pianist Renee Rosnes, and former Jazz Crusader Hubert Laws guesting on flute. This set is shorter on melodic variation than its predecessors, and depends on a clutch of interchangeably riffy themes, but the improvising is mostly excellent. Flautist Laws sounds a bit overawed by the opening firecracker solos of Stafford and Hart on the uptempo Allegro, but he settles into a coolly undulating lope on the raised-tempo section of Ballad. Blues is another riff-vehicle, but with a crisp piano solo from Renee Rosnes, an excellent squirming trumpet from Sean Jones (listen out for this newcomer in the London jazz festival) and some explosive drumming from Lewis Nash. I Concentrate on You is a subtle Wilson arrangement, delicately explored by Anthony Wilson's Wes Montgomery-ish guitar against pillow-like chords.