Tenor Saxophones Get Their Season in the Sun

It’s a big month for the jazz tenor saxophone. Within a brief two-week period, new recordings are arriving from three top-level players. With three decades separating the oldest from the youngest, the collective offerings provide an insightful overview of the jazz tenor state of the art.

David Sanchez. “Melaza” (*** 1/2, Columbia, released Tuesday). At 32, Puerto Rican-born Sanchez is the youngest of the group. But over the past year or so, he has dramatically come into his own, his skills honed by an intense touring schedule and a stable group.

Sanchez has titled the album “Melaza,” or “molasses,” to underscore his dedication to the culture of Puerto Rico, and to the complex role that the sugar fields played in the island’s history.

Most of the pieces are energized by a surging flow of percussion--Sanchez’s dedication to folkloric bomba and plena music he heard in his youth. Composed by Sanchez and band members Miguel Zenon and Hans Glawischnig (with an additional work by Milton Nascimento), the music is consistently well-crafted, determinedly contemporary without losing touch with the attractions of melody and rich with Latin overtones.

But the album is far more jazz-oriented than his previous “Obsesion” recording (which was co-produced by Branford Marsalis). Sanchez’s brilliant playing--moving seamlessly from hard swinging to wildly avant-garde note flurries--is as good as he has done on recordings. And he is matched, for the most part, by pianist Edsel Gomez and, especially, by alto saxophonist Miguel Zenon.

Oddly, amid the Latin rhythms and edgy improvising, there are moments (noticeably so on “Puerto San Juan”) in which their interaction is reminiscent of the Lee Konitz-Warne Marsh duo efforts. And, emphasizing continuing linkages, Branford Marsalis joins the ensemble, tossing tenor lines back and forth on Sanchez’s “Cancion de Can~averal.”

Branford Marsalis. “Contemporary Jazz” (***, Columbia, release date this coming Tuesday). Much of Marsalis’ earlier work often left one with the feeling that the full scope of his abilities was simply not completely operative. Appearing on television (as the bandleader for Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show”), leading a crossover jazz-pop ensemble (Buckshot LeFonque) and touring with pop stars such as Sting, Marsalis seemed loath to give full concentration to his unquestioned skills as a jazz artist.

So it’s undoubtedly significant that he chose to title this release “Contemporary Jazz,” noting that most of his previous titles “have been goofs and sendups.”

“But I think we’re finally playing good contemporary music,” he continues. “We’ve gone through what we needed to, as people and as musicians, to be at the top of our game.”

Not quite at the top, not yet. Marsalis’ abilities still haven’t been stretched to their full potential. But this is a very good album, nonetheless. His creative counterpoint with drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, an essential element in most of his straight-ahead outings, is in fine form, a high-voltage connection between two players with an instinctively intuitive musical connection.

Most important, there are many passages--his soloing on “Requiem” and “Elysium,” for example--in which he does indeed appear to be setting aside the control one often sensed in previous recordings in favor of sheer, let-it-all-hang-out musical spontaneity.

Charles Lloyd. “The Water Is Wide” (***, ECM, release date Aug. 22). Lloyd’s career passed through decades of wave-like appearances and disappearances after his major jazz hit in the mid-’60s, “Forest Flower.” Despite the occasional absences, his live performances over the past year or so, especially when working with guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Billy Higgins, have been extraordinary.

For this recording, he ups the ante even more, adding pianist Brad Mehldau and either Larry Grenadier or Darek Oles on bass. The result is a kind of older guys/younger guys all-star ensemble, and they work together with unerring sensitivity.

Unlike the Sanchez and Marsalis albums, this is, with a few exceptions, a collection of largely contemplative music rather than hard-driving up-tempos. Playing slowly and sparsely with great interior intensity may be one of the most difficult tasks in jazz. To paraphrase a famous comic’s line (“Dying is easy, comedy is hard”), in jazz the notes are easy, meaning is hard. But Lloyd does it superbly, and the interactive segments with Mehldau--”Ballade and Allegro” and “The Monk and the Mermaid” in particular--display a creative connection between two unusually kindred musical souls.