**1/2 Sex Mob

DIN OF INEQUITY

(Columbia/Knitting Factory)

When slide-trumpeter Steven Bernstein (Spanish Fly, Don Byron, Lounge Lizards) squeezes out his precisely etched "wrong" notes over drummer Kenny Wollesen's bustling brush work and bassist Tony Scherr's noir-ish eight-note walking blues vamp, it's new-jazz heaven. Likewise Briggan Krauss's tenor-wide alto sax (he joins Bernstein on the sprightly, angular theme of "Holiday of Briggan" before sailing off into his own land of the new). Sex Mob also play with funk beats and echoey dub effects and cover a wide range of "standards": Leadbelly's "House of the Rising Sun," Ellington's "Come Sunday," Hoagy Carmichael's "New Orleans," Prince's "Sign `O' the Times," the McCartneys' "Live and Let Die," and even "Goldfinger." Utility neo-funk organ guy John Medeski makes a few appearances, and so do guitarists Adam Levy and London McDaniels.

Some of the covers are supposed to be hip and funny, but sometimes -- like "Goldfinger" -- they just sound thin. I'd rather hear Krauss driving fast, hard, and raspy (Shepp-style) over a straight-time beat, or the band doing up Bernstein's funkified originals as opposed to approximating the lushness of John Barry with an airless squeak. The dry production doesn't help either. Oh well, I guess that's the price of jazz hipness these days.

-- Jon Garelick