*** Jayne Cortez & the Firespitters

TAKING THE BLUES BACK HOME

(Verve)

Cortez reads her vitriolic poetry with high-intensity fire, and with a sharp feel for blues and jazz rhythms and tone colors. But what carries the day in this winning collection of her poems set to music is her band. Two veterans from Ornette Coleman's Prime Time bands, drummer Denardo Coleman and guitarist Bern Nix, push Cortez hard. They're supplemented by saxophonist Frank Lowe (who deserves more solo space than he gets) and some traditional African musicians. Cortez is at her most trite and melodramatic when she offers tributes to old blues artists. She triumphs when she focuses acidly upon various political injustices, including a rare critique of Rwandan genocide. If you like your poetry and jazz with an impolite edge and a sense of heady risk, then this disc is for you.

-- Norman Weinstein