*** Dewey Redman, Cecil Taylor, Elvin Jones

MOMENTUM SPACE

(Verve)

These three legends of jazz improvisation wigged for two August 1998 days in a NYC studio to record this seven-tune diary. It's damn personal, too. Jones offers a drum solo, "Bekei," that's a little exercise in shadow boxing; he swats contemplatively at his dark side until he's rolling happily over the kit, ultimately celebrating the liberating power of the beat. Redman swings like a mother into his own "Spoonin' " but stops to smell every rose of harmony he can dig up along the way, walking the Coltrane-and-Coleman line over Jones's percussive jabs. His sax's tone is full of force and grace -- a mile wide yet fluid as a hummingbird.

Then there's Taylor. His troika of "Life As," "It," and "Is" mines all the modes of his playing: gentle and contemplative, breathless and racing, mood-shattering and mind-expanding -- in each piece. He is a giant even among these fellow giants. And this CD captures him in brilliant flight, embodying what happens when superb technique and musical genius become so ingrained that they surrender to every gust of the creative spirit.

-- Ted Drozdowski