NEW RELEASES

* * * * Dr. Michael White, “New Year’s at the Village Vanguard,” Antilles. Clarinetist White again reaches back to the songbooks of such early jazz greats as Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet in this sparkling live set recorded in January at New York’s venerable jazz club. This outing sings, sparked by the presence of such players as White, his pal Wynton Marsalis and trumpeter Wendell Brunious, all of whom know the critical importance in this music of melody over chord progressions. White’s group makes an irrefutable case for the dictum that these are the good old days.