J. D. Allen

“I Am I Am” (Sunnyside), the new trio album by the youngish tenor saxophonist J. D. Allen, is redolent of serious jazz from the mid-1960s. But it’s not sentimental or glib; it’s dry, focused and compressed. More than half its tracks are under four minutes, and if you’ve listened to much serious jazz lately, that alone is a reason to be curious. In his mid-30s, Mr. Allen sounds as if he’s been through jazz pedagogy, but he’s not of it; the record is alive with the rhythmic slang and vernacular of the bandstand. (Gregg August is the bassist and Rudy Royston is the drummer.) Some of these tunes are based on small motifs, expanded in the style of Sonny Rollins; others are harmonic-motion exercises, expanded in the style of John Coltrane. Balanced somewhere between études and collective workouts, all the tracks contain nuggets of song, and Mr. Allen’s even, balanced sound works through them with remarkable care, never revealing too much or stiffing you on a good melody.