Jazz saxophonist Jimmy Heath is one of the last living legends to reign in the Bop and Hard Bop era. An arranger and composer as well, he's been wildly prolific since he began recording in 1948, both as a sideman and leader. Original Jazz Classics' compilation, Nice People, is a great introduction to not only Heath's music, but the era itself, with tracks featuring a who's who of mid-century jazz.

A member of one of jazz's royal families, Heath grew up with brothers Percy, a bassist, and drummer Albert "Tootie" Heath. Albert is the drummer on most of the tracks and Percy shares the bass chair with Paul Chambers.

Heath started his career playing alto sax, but after earning the nickname "Little Bird" due to his stylistic similarity to Charlie "Bird" Parker, he switched to the tenor. Nice People covers his most prolific period, from 1959-1964 when he was recording for Riverside.

The collection opens with the title cut, a bop gem written to the changes of "Indiana," like Miles Davis' "Donna Lee." A 3-horn arrangement with Nat Adderley on cornet, it opens with a hard swinging intro by under-appreciated pianist Wynton Kelly and just picks up more steam as it bounces along.

"The Picture Of Heath" is from 1960's Really Big, his big band release. Not exactly a big band but you'd never know it was only a tentet from the sound of the all-star horns that join Heath -- Adderley, Clark Terry, Pat Patrick on bari, trombonist Tom McIntosh and Dick Berg on French horn. Calling them tight doesn't begin to do justice to this dream team horn section.

And the pianists on this compilation? Wow. Along with Kelly, there's Cedar Walton, Harold Mabern, Tommy Flanagan and a young guy you may have heard of, Herbie Hancock. Trumpeters Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard are also featured, as is guitarist Kenny Burrell. This is the pantheon of the bop era, and it just doesn't get any bigger or better.

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April is Jazz Appreciation Month. What I appreciate most about jazz is that no one has the one and only, exclusively correct, definition of jazz. Which is quite liberating: If no one can tell me what jazz is, then no one can tell me what jazz is not.

Some folks consider Dixieland music, for example, to be the most original and pure form of jazz. But if Dixieland is jazz, how can music played by bands like Return to Forever and the Yellowjackets be jazz? It's completely different, almost totally opposite, music. And if that music is jazz? Then the wobbly blue rhythms and chords of Thelonious Monk surely are not... are they? What do we do with a vocalist like Tony Bennett? Is he a jazz singer? He sings a lot of pop...

That's what I appreciate about jazz the most: No matter what you claim jazz "is" -- Dixieland or fusion or bebop or whatever -- we can with just a little effort find something completely different and call that music jazz, too.

From this perspective, jazz becomes much more than just one style of music, it becomes a way of listening to and appreciating ALL styles of music. The way Isaac Hayes rearranges a pop tune like "I Stand Accused" and transforms it into a profoundly personal soul manifesto, or that Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers rough up Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man," or that Tom Ball finger picks through a Merle Travis tune -- it's all jazz to me.

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Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals (Fantasy) is a small, obscure and fascinating entry in Dave Brubeck's group catalog, comprising a series of octet sessions that feature some of Brubeck's first work with Paul Desmond (alto sax) and Cal Tjader manning not vibes but the drum kit, recorded in and around San Francisco throughout the late 1940s. Often overlooked, the original issue of Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals returns to vinyl circulation just in time for Record Store Day, a national celebration of record boutiques, on April 21.

Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals presented eight tunes on 10" vinyl in 1956. [The compilation Dave Brubeck Octet (Original Jazz Classics, 1991) packaged these eight with another 10.] These eight tracks are made so distinctive through challenging arrangements that reassemble standards into shapes that are anything but familiar.

Brubeck's arrangement attacks "The Way You Look Tonight" from multiple directions, with different instruments playing different phrases of the melody (sometimes simultaneously). Brubeck's piano worries a four-note pulse into "What Is This Thing Called Love" and leaps like a Monk-ish colt (or a colt-ish Monk) into Van Kriedt's "Fugue on Bop Themes," which jumps with the joy of collective New Orleans improvisation within the fugue form. For "Loved Walked In" and "Let's Fall in Love," the octet rocks uptempo blues, swinging like a larger Count Basie big band.

Each number is so brief and sounds so similar to the rest that their overall effect creates one continuous, yet continuously changing, brilliant piece of music -- perfect to listen to after purchasing it at a boutique record store. To learn more about Record Store Day, visit www.recordstoreday.com.

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Few releases come better titled than Teddy Charles' New Directions (Original Jazz Classics, 1999), a collection put together from three 1950s sessions that featured Charles on vibraphone, marimbas, xylophone and bongos, and grew more progressive while his music searched for... new directions.

Standards and traditionals such as "Blue Moon" and "Tenderly" chart the first half of New Directions, but Charles arranges its conventional music across an unconventional vibes trio with bass and guitar instead of piano and/or drums. After an introductory verse in half-time, Charles' vibes soar through "Ol' Man River" like Lionel Hampton "Flying Home," and "I'll Remember April" and "Basin Street Blues" bob and weave with a funky saunter like a walk home after too much Bourbon (Street).

The second half of Directions, from subsequent trio and quartet dates, steers through several different circuits. Charles' melancholy tone poem "Nocturne" explores a darkness further out. His vibes throb and twirl with the hot rhythms of "A Night in Tunisia" and dance like a gypsy with its exotic melody. This half culminates in four concept pieces by pianist Hal Overton with such titles as "Metalizing" and "Decibels."

During this same time, Charles served in the Jazz Composers Workshop with bassist Charles Mingus and others. He appears with Mingus on Miles Davis' Blue Moods (OJC, 1990) for the bassist's Debut label, and as part of the all-star quintet date Cookin' (OJC, 1995) and sextet session Olio (OJC, 1999), both with pianist Mal Waldron.

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