It's my song now

To me, Sonny Rollins taking a familiar song and recasting it for his own improvisational purposes is one of the great pleasures of life. (Check out "I'm an Old Cow Hand" on "Way Out West" or "Moritat," which is "Mack the Knife," on "Saxophone Colossus" for classic examples.)

So when Michael Wolff and company remake "St. Thomas," the calypso standard by Mr. Rollins, on "Dangerous Vision," my inclination is to like it. Add the same kind of pushing-the-envelope improvising on Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," Nat Adderley's "Work Song," and more and you've got a CD that demands to be noticed. I've got to think Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo would dig what these guys do with their "Soul Sauce."

Interesting instrumental lineup as well. No horns, Wolff, who's done everything from back Cannonball Adderley to run the band for Arsenio Hall's show, on acoustic and Rhodes pianos, Brazilian percussion master Airto Moreira, and a bassist, a drummer and a tabla player, which is to say somebody (Badal Roy) on an Asian percussion instrument something like bongos. Hey, I didn't know what it was until I looked it up on Wikipedia.