**1/2 Happy Apple

BODY POPPING * MOON WALKING * TOP ROCKING

(No Alternative)

On their third album, the Minneapolis-based sax/bass/drums trio give the impression that they're probably a better live band. Maybe that's because the first track is 15 minutes long, wending its way through a sweet opening alto-sax theme, landing at free Miles circa "In a Silent Way," and exiting with a Moroccan-flavored reed-and-percussion workout. That number ("The Barstow Sizzler") and the shorter, peppy "The Express Lane Really Isn't All That Fast" are both too long by a couple of minutes -- the endless false ending is apparently a Happy Apple specialty.

Yet along with its indulgences, this album offers the kind of moment-to-moment, best-heard-live rewards you get only from top-flight improvisers. The overall sound falls somewhere between the full-on spontaneous-improv assault of Boston's the Fringe and the complex formal strategies and astringent surfaces of Henry Threadgill's Air. Rather than delivering compositional unity and inevitability, the band serve up tempo, texture, and feel, especially on the loping, bluesy "Tang: The Astronaut's Drink of Desire," where Michael Lewis's tenor sax, Erik Fratzke's extraordinary, horn-like Fender bass, and David King's drums tug and stretch the beat like a piece of taffy.

-- Jon Garelick