*** Jon Jarvis Trio

HEAR NO EVIL

(TVT)

Jarvis is one of the hidden treasures of the Boston scene -- session man, sideman, cocktail-lounge pianist. On this, his second TVT CD, he continues to show the kind of chops he's been honing in town and on the road for a couple of decades. Working with guitarist Anthony Weller and bassist Bob Nieske, he mixes up styles and attacks with a good choice of standards ("Love Me or Leave Me," "I Could Write a Book," "Lazy River," and more) and originals that sound like standards ("I Don't Know," with its golly-gee melody and terrific up-and-down unison bridge from Jarvis and Weller, begs for lyrics -- it could be a long-lost Frank Loesser show tune).

Jarvis has bebop reach in his harmonies -- there's a wealth of great music in just his opening, slightly off-center block chords on "Shiny Stockings." But the playing here -- and the instrumentation -- reaches back to the pre-bop swing of the Nat King Cole Trio, Teddy Wilson, and Art Tatum. There's certainly plenty of Tatum in those million-note runs. In the end, though, Jarvis is a pan-stylist whose showiness is always musical -- whether his hands are pumping out complex independent lines or, in his own "Pop's Blues," ranging all over the keyboard in an unbroken string of ideas, from laughing top-of-the-the-register asides to deep-end boogie-woogie. The equally capable Weller gets a couple of his own solo spots as well. It's a CD where even a superfluous jazz take on the Lennon/McCartney "Michelle" can be forgiven.

-- Jon Garelick

(The Jon Jarvis Trio plays the Regattabar this Tuesday, August 15. Call 876-7777.)