Consumer Guide Album

Burnt Sugar: That Depends on What You Know: Fubractive: Since Antiquity Suite [Trugroid, 2002]
If electric Miles could make the double-LP his métier, why shouldn't eclectic Greg try triple-CDs? Especially since he's got the humanity and business sense to sell each disc singly. This Lester Bowie tribute is the hit because within the permissive parameters of Burnt Sugar's art-ensemble ambience it's the loudest and fastest, and because the blood never leaves its pulse. As does happen on these discs, the best theme was written elsewhere (by Monk, with Miles immortalizing). But the whole thing will fill your earhole from the moment its chant-and-percussion rises out of the ooze. MVP: pianist Vijay Iyer. A-