**1/2 Michal Urbaniak and Urbanator

URBANATOR II

(Hip Bop Records)

Urbanator explore the wide groove that cool jazz, hip-hop, acid, and fusion is cutting through popular music. "Urbal Tea" swings through slippery violin solos, layering keyboards and horns in Crusaders-style airy fusion and funking it up with hard backbeats and Al MacDowell's agile fretting on piccolo bass. In "Urbanate the Area No. 2," the continental swing of horns and strings combined with Solid's rapping allows Polish jazz violinist Urbaniak to re-create traditional sounds in different genres. In "Basia," he trims the brassy jazz licks to lean percussive trills that sound fresh against the heavy bass line.

In "Hi Ho Silver," Urbaniak's combo plays a cool formal jazz, like the Modern Jazz Quartet's, that slips into the funky playfulness of our own Either/Orchestra. "Anytime, Anywhere" shows off the band's ability to muscle up the near-muzak of popular jazz with perilous turns on hooks and sizzling ensemble work on a skittery beat. The characters tell the tale. Guests: the Brecker brothers, Herbie Hancock, Marcus Miller, Tom Browne, Bernard Wright. The tributes: Coltrane, Miles, Wynton Marsalis.

-- Craig Thorn