The term "New York downtown jazz" is sometimes frowned upon by its practitioners, who tend to feel stylistically pigeonholed by the description and also linked to a certain club south of Canal Street, about which many feel ambivalent at best. There might be a number of reasons for these members of the New York creative music community to roll their eyes at yet another reference to "downtowners" (not the least of which being that many of them live in Brooklyn), but they must at least acknowledge that the downtown scene is usually described in positive terms -- edgy, progressive, boundary-stretching, adventurous, non-idiomatic -- in contrast to the Midtown scene surrounding Wynton Marsalis and Lincoln Center, which, while credited with keeping the flame of classic modern jazz alive in America, has also been accused of a certain stodgy, retro, parochial, and limited sensibility in today's current, all-encompassing world of jazz and creative improvisation. Well, anyone interested in investigating all that is fine about New York downtown jazz -- and how it contrasts with the Midtown stuff -- should start right here. Possessing all the positive attributes referenced above, Ned Rothenberg's Power Lines is an absolute classic that no other downtown CD -- by John Zorn, Dave Douglas, or anybody else well-known or obscure -- has ever topped. It's not surprising that Power Lines is a quintessential downtown release, since the members of alto saxophonist and bass clarinetist Rothenberg's nonet are pretty much at the top of the A list of downtown musicians. Cellist Erik Friedlander, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Mark Dresser, and drummer Michael Sarin have all been members of the Dave Douglas String Group, and trumpeter Douglas is here as well; Friedlander and Feldman can also be heard performing with Zorn's Masada and Bar Kokhba projects. Trombonist Josh Roseman is featured on recordings by the Dave Douglas Sextet and Uri Caine. The band is completed by violist Ruth Siegler, baritone saxophonist and bass clarinetist Kenny Berger, and, on two tracks, acclaimed world music veteran Glen Velez on frame drums.

1		Hidalgo
2		Strange Sarabande
3		Bellhop Vontz
4		Crosshatch
5		In the Rotation