DANIEL SCHNYDER (b.1961): Trumpet Concerto (Reinhold Friedrich [trumpet], North German Radio Philharmonic; Kristjan Järvi), Little Songbook for Soloist and Brass Quintet (Manhattan Brass), subZERO - Concerto for Bass Trombone and Ensemble (David Taylor [bass trombone], Absolute Ensemble; Järvi).

Description: A composer with a parallel career in jazz and world music, Schnyder brings a sense of ready emotional appeal and accessibility to these sophisticated concert pieces. The jazz element is never far from the surface in the lively trumpet concerto, which veers between Milhaud in jazz mode and a kind of finely crafted concert transcription of nightclub jazz: thoroughly enjoyable. The composer appears as soloist in the Songbook which takes familiar gestures - clichés, even - of small ensemble jazz and weaves them into a smartly gleaming suite of contrasting character pieces. subZERO exploits the agility of the bass trombone as much as its extraordinary timbral quality in three movements, the outer two with a cheeky, Stravinskyan take on the jazz idiom, the central one a modal jazz-world music fusion.