James Moody

On Parker-Gillespie's "Anthropology" (astonishing) and "Kriss Kross," the anguish and wit of Moody's second-generation bop reed playing sounds as fresh as if black humor hadn't come to mean something quite different, and when he chooses to divert or soothe he is often intelligent and sensuous. But sometimes (acceding, I suspect, to the more trivial imagination of pianist Kenny Barron) his lyricism becomes so lightweight that its intricate sophistication serves only to disguise its lack of substance. Or maybe I mean that the man should give up the flute. (Grade: B+)