Christian Howes & The Horacio Icasto Quartet: Live In Madrid

Playing jazz violin is a rarefied enough skill that anyone who comes along wielding a fiddle and a bow is bound to invite comparisons to predecessors, from Ray Nance and Stuff Smith to Joe Venuti and Jean-Luc Ponty. And if his song list includes "Nuages," "I've Found A New Baby," and "I Got Rhythm"—three staples of the repertoire of the immortal guitarist Django Reinhardt and his Quintette du Hot Club de France—then being compared to Django's Hot Club partner, Stephane Grappelli, isn't just inevitable, it's obligatory. But based on this hour-long 2002 club gig in Madrid, Christian Howes is his own man. Accompanied by an outstanding band (led by pianist Horacio Icasto), the Ohio-born violinist saws his way through an hour-long club performance that signals numerous influences; much of the music is straight-ahead jazz, but when Howes whips out an electric violin, occasionally strumming it like a guitar and adding the kind of heavy effects normally heard from rock and fusion players, it's obvious that this is no Hot Club tribute band. Along with the three aforementioned standards and Sonny Rollins' "Pent Up House," the material includes Howes' own tunes and a composition by Argentine tango master Astor Piazzola. Presented in clear-as-a-bell Dolby Digital stereo, DVD extras include bonus audio tracks, text bios of Howes and Icasto, and a photo gallery. Recommended. Aud: P. (S. Graham)