Not as much Jazz CG progress last week as I had hoped, but at least I've turned the corner. I'm looking at a draft that's about 60% there, and I've moved from first round prospecting to checking back on the replays. Of course, if Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins pop up in my mailbox, I'll have to give them a spin. The personal disruptions are still taking a toll, so no telling how this week will work out. But I'd say the odds of column done are close to 50-50.

Mary Foster Conklin: Blues for Breakfast (2004-05 [2006], Rhombus): Her voice takes a bit to get used to, but gains on you over time. That's not unusual for jazz singers -- if they had ordinary voices, they'd be doing something else. How much she might gain is something I'm unlikely to find out. This strikes me as marginal, especially given that the slow stuff she favors can be turgid, but her "Let's Get Away From It All" is a choice cut. Dedicated to Matt Dennis, who co-wrote the songs. B

Third World Love: Sketch of Tel Aviv (2005 [2006], Smalls): This merits further listening, especially a comparison with the Omer Avital record -- the bassist reappears here, along with trumpeter Avishai Cohen, the leader of this Israeli quartet. Also need to look further into whatever it is that "third world love" means. Avital's closer, "Three Four (Not a Jazz Tune)" has a pronounced affinity with Abdullah Ibrahim. [B+(**)]

Michael O'Neill: Ontophony (2005 [2006], Songlines): A remarkable record, but the key question remains: how much bagpipe music can you stand? The booklet has a photo that explains better than I can what the concept is here: it shows three highland pipes players in kilts on a rock on the right side, and three Japanese taiko drummers on the field on the left side, each with one arm raised high above the head. That pipes and percussion go together is a thesis we can grant. On the other hand, my tolerance level does not look forward to a replay. Your mileage may vary. B

Les Primitifs du Futur: World Musette (1999 [2006], Sunnyside): Knowing that R. Crumb is involved in this project -- the cover art, of course, but he also plays mandolin and banjo -- makes it all the easier to imagine this as what happens when the Cheap Suit Serenaders go to seed in Paris. Guitarist Dominique Cravic is the leader and principal songwriter. Daniel Huck sings scat, and a cast of dozens play instruments my French isn't good enough to translate. Starts out sounding old-timey, but before long the accordions overwhelm the ukuleles and the musette takes over -- still old-timey, but European, even when they fake a Chinese waltz. A-

Kali Z. Fasteau/Kidd Jordan: People of the Ninth: New Orleans and the Hurricane 2005 (2005 [2006], Flying Note): Drummer Michael T.A. Thompson is the third name on the cover, but not the spine. He has as much to do with this as anyone, but that's because he adds a balance to the leaders. Floods excavate as well as bury, and one of the few positive effects of Katrina has been the emergence of Kidd Jordan as the avant-garde's honorary Mardi Gras master. I've always found him a bit difficult, but Kali Z's goofiness lets him be the focus without getting overly serious. She plays her usual smorgasbord of instruments: piano, cello, soprano sax, nai flute, something called an aquasonic that I'll have to look up some day. While Jordan's the star, he sits out on my favorite track here, pitching Kali's nai against Thompson's balafon. [B+(***)]

And these are final grades/notes on records I put back for further listening the first time around.

Louis Hayes and the Cannonball Legacy Band: Maximum Firepower (2006, Savant): Bright, brassy hard bop, pretty much like the model. Vincent Herring is a fair approximation of Cannonball, and if anything Jeremy Pelt kicks Nat up a notch. Hayes has been there and done that -- he played with the Adderleys in their 1959-65 heyday. He's entitled, but the difference now is that the popular moves back then still had an audience. This may sound the same, but it misses that connection. B+(**)

Mike Boone: Yeah, I Said It . . . (2005 [2006], Dreambox Media): An aural scrapbook, with a touching remembrance of mom and the golden rule; a discourse on swing and the electric bass; stories of Barry Kiener, Ben Vereen, and most importantly Buddy Rich. The music itself is widely scattered, the narration holding it together, like the thread of a life. B+(**)

Available Jelly: Bilbao Song (2004 [2005], Ramboy): This is Michael Moore's label and mostly his compositions, even if he doesn't take full responsibility for the group. Ernst Glerum and Michael Vatcher, bass and drums, are frequent collaborators, but the group is defined more by the horns: two brass, two reeds, in all sorts of fruitful combinations. B+(**)

Michael Moore Quintet: Osiris (2005 [2006], Ramboy): Not a repeat of Moore's 1988 quintet, the only other time he's used that lineup. This one's a Dutch group, with Eric Vloeimans on trumpet and Marc van Roon on piano, but closer to chamber music -- soft and silky -- than classic hard bop. It has some moments, and may pan out if you put the time into its postbop intricacies. B+(*)

Don Byron: Do the Boomerang: The Music of Junior Walker (2006, Blue Note): No doubt this is better played than the original. Details like David Gilmore's guitar, George Colligan's organ, and Rodney Holmes' drums are cleanly, sharply articulated. They crank up the funk quotient, at points suggesting James Brown. Byron own role is less clear: he plays tenor sax here -- the exceptions are one cut on clarinet and one on bass clarinet -- without much grit or grime. The vocals are another matter. Neither Dean Bowman nor Chris Thomas King offer much of interest, although they do an adequate job of going through the motions. It's interesting Byron still cares about the motions -- I'd say this is populism more than pop. B+(*)

Jason Moran: Artist in Residence (2006, Blue Note): He's brilliant, but his record is pretty scattered, opting for a hip-hop sample on one track, an aria on the next. I'm tempted to say I wish he'd slim this down to focus on his piano, but two of the experiments make me want to hear more: the percusion duet with Joan Jonas, and a rough piece of free jazz with Abdou Mboup's djembe and Ralph Alessi's trumpet joining the trio. B+(**)

Kidd Jordan/Hamid Drake/William Parker: Palm of Soul (2005 [2006], AUM Fidelity): Homeless after Katrina, Jordan fled to Brooklyn and networked with his old chums. Drake and Parker do their usual thing, and then some: not content to be the world's best at bass and drums, they drag out the tablas, guimbri, and miscellaneous percussion exotica. Drake even chants, reducing Jordan to comping. I'm not sure whether Jordan is mellowing, as septuagenerians often do, or is just delighted to be there. A-

Lucian Ban & Alex Harding: Tuba Project (2005 [2006], CIMP): Never figured out what the purpose of the project was, other than to replace the bass in a piano-two sax quintet and get a chance to employ Bob Stewart. The two saxes are Harding on baritone and J.D. Allen on tenor, so the group keeps to the lower registers. Ban composed all but one of the pieces and plays them with roughly structured block chords. Most tuba moves are meant to be retro, but it's hard to tell here. B+(*)

D.D. Jackson: Serenity Song (2006, Justin Time): A good piano trio owing something to Jackson's mentor, the late great Don Pullen. But it doesn't stop there: most cuts add strings and/or soprano sax -- a stereotypical way to set up the serenity theme. I don't much care for the sound of either, which turns this into a bag of mixed blessings. No complaints about the trombone on the Mingus-theme piece. B+(*)

John McLaughlin: Industrial Zen (2006, Verve): For the most part, a pretty straightforward fusion album -- what he's best known for, but not what he's mostly done in the last couple of decades. He can still impress when he cranks it up, but it's mostly the guitar and drums -- the spot sax doesn't help much. Oddly enough, what does help is his Indian interests: Zakir Hussain's tabla, Shankar Mahadevan's two vocals. B+(*)

Misja Fitzgerald Michel: Encounter (2005 [2006], No Format/Sunnyside): The first cut throws you off the game plan, for while guitarist Michel romps along to an Ornette tune, the tenor saxophonist is the one who grabs your attention. He's Ravi Coltrane, every bit as impressive as on his own albums. But after taking charge, he vanishes until the ninth cut -- a Michel original that sets up closers penned by Wayne Shorter and an elder Coltrane. The rest is guitar-bass-drum trio, moving smartly with a sound much denser than the norm for postbop jazz guitar. But then why would Michel bother playing 12-string if all he wanted to do was pick out hornlike single-note lines? B+(**)

Houston Person/Bill Charlap: You Taught My Heart to Sing (2004 [2006], High Note): Lovely, of course, with scant room for nitpicking, but perhaps a bit too much of a mutual admiration society, especially where the saxophonist makes way for the pianist. I keep wishing a bass would enter and scurry them along a bit. B+(***)

Billy Hart: Quartet (2005 [2006], High Note): The veteran drummer wrote four of nine songs, versus two for the pianist and one for the saxophonist, so his leadership isn't exactly honorary. But the group's sound flows from Ethan Iverson's piano and Mark Turner's tenor sax, and fits squarely in their generation of postbop. B+(***)

Ignacio Berroa: Codes (2005 [2006], Blue Note): Following in Chano Pozo's footsteps, Berroa moved to New York in 1980 and found a job in Dizzy Gillespie's band. But his Afro-Cuban roots were attenuated -- he blames Castro for suppressing Yoruba religion and restricting his schooling to the Euroclassics. Even here, the most characteristic Cuban rhythms come not from trad percussion but from Gonzalo Rubalcaba's piano and Felipe LaMoglia's saxophones. He plays traps, but has mastered the coding to produce an effective pan-American synthesis. A-

Stefon Harris: African Tarantella (2005 [2006], Blue Note): I've never been much impressed with the highly touted vibraphonist, but these "dances with Duke" at least show conceptual daring. And when Steve Turre uncorks his trombone for some much needed brass, the opening movements from "The New Orleans Suite" come to life. But Turre provides the only whiff of brass here, leaving the suites mired in soft colors -- flute, clarinet, piano, strings, nothing that might compete with the leader's mallets. As long as the composer is named Ellington, this is an interesting twist. But when the composer's name is Harris, the fluff has a harder time standing on its own. B+(*)

Sonny Simmons: I'll See You When You Get There (2004-05 [2006], Jazzaway): Minimal Sonny, not solo but in duets that only marginally frame his solos -- six with bassist Mats Eilertsen, two with pianist Anders Aarum, two with drummer Ole Thomas Kolberg. The drums hold up best because they clearly add something, whereas the bass and piano are more like admiring reflections. Solo sax tends to slow down because nothing else pushes it along. That can be a plus for an ex-Firebird. B+(**)

Thomas Chapin Trio: Ride (1995 [2006], Playscape): Wish he had kept to the alto sax, as the warbly stuff -- flute and sopranino sax -- tones down what otherwise is a vigorous live set, from the North Sea Jazz Festival. Chapin died young in 1998, and is so revered that his live scraps have become a cottage industry. More often than not, this one shows you why. Title comes from a Beatles song, and he's definitely got the ticket there -- a choice cut. B+(***)