POP and JAZZ REVIEWS : Carney Fronts Solid Group at Lunaria

Slinging out one zesty hand-crafted number after another, pianist-composer James Carney fronted a choice quintet Friday at Lunaria.

Almost all the selections played in the first two sets were taken from Carney’s new “Fables From the Aqueduct” album, a collection that uses life in Los Angeles as a loose thematic center.

These tunes revealed a composer who unabashedly employs a sweeping stylistic palette, from rollicking, New Orleans-Second-Line-ish to slow and moody to surging with a brisk tempo inferred, but never actually stated.

Carney and his band mates--Scott Mayo and Chuck Manning (saxes), Derek Oleszkiewicz (bass) and Dan Morris (drums)-- played this often thorny, but ever-rewarding material with considerable spark.

“Yoknapatowpha Blues” found Carney following Manning’s volatile, stomp-your-foot lines with clean, bluesy phrases and long, swerving scales. On “Queen of the Tangent,” Mayo segued from swirling, circular thoughts to stuttered moments, while Carney used chords to melodic advantage.

The 30-year-old Carney warrants some increased recognition in the modern jazz trade.