New CDs: Jimmy Cliff's roots-reggae; The dB's do it; Bucks County's Brooke Shive; Orrin Evans' jazz

Pop

Jimmy Cliff

Rebirth

Though he's tossed in a few torrid reggae classics on nearly every album he's recorded, there hasn't been an across-the-board, consistently great, wonderful sounding Jimmy Cliff album since his true breakthrough of 1972: his songs on the soundtrack to The Harder They Come and its immediate follow-up, the mighty and mournful Struggling Man. There simply hasn't been the strength of empowered lyrical composition and dynamic melody to go along with his trademark angelic wail since that time.

That is, until Rebirth.

Aesop Rock

Skelethon

The dB's

Falling Off the Sky

This is the first album in 30 years by the original lineup of the dB's — Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Gene Holder, and Will Rigby. That's the foursome who in 1981 and '82 delivered the one-two punch of Stands for deciBels and Repercussion. It was the jangle heard 'round the world, helping set the template for indie-pop.

The Very Best

MTMTMK

The Very Best debuted with a 2008 mixtape that mashed-up hits from Vampire Weekend, M.I.A. and others with the joyful singing of Malawi's Esau Mwamwaya. Their first proper album, 2009's Warm Heart of Africa, showed that the trio, including London-based producer / DJs Etienne Tron and Johan Karlberg, could translate that sunny aesthetic into original songs, like the buoyant "Julia" and the title track, which featured VW's Ezra Koenig. MTMTMK is just as joyous: it's a perfect summer album.

Country / Roots

Brooke Shive and the 45's

Way Past Gone

Brooke Shive and the 45's grab your attention right from the start with "Lie, Lie, Lie," a bristling slab of R&B with a tough, defiant vocal to match by Shive. This Bucks County band, which includes Shive's father, Steve, on drums, then proceeds to hold that attention for the rest of this 10-song set.

Way Past Gone is an energetic and expertly executed amalgam of R&B, rock-and-roll, soul, and country. Fine originals like "Kiss the Sky," "Way Past Gone," and "Simple Plan" sit easily alongside chestnuts by Elvis, Etta James, and Otis Redding, ensuring that the music doesn't sound like just an exercise in retro.

Jazz

Orrin Evans

Flip the Script

There comes a moment on pianist Orrin Evans' new CD when he takes on Gamble & Huff's "The Sounds of Philadelphia," quietly passing through the tune alone. The piece is powerful and tragic, a resonant meditation on the gap between jazz and R&B and perhaps the shortcomings of his adopted town.

Evans also dips into Luther Vandross' "A Brand New Day" from the 1975 musical The Wiz, but the tune is a much more orthodox outing, with Evans flying across the keys and pulling chords out like fresh kindling. Throughout this trio session, he burnishes his own modernist chops while paying debts to fellow pianists Thelonious Monk and McCoy Tyner.

Classical

Debussy

Preludes, Books I and II, Trois Nocturnes, and Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun

Alexei Lubimov and Alexei Zuev, pianos

Much is made in this release about pianist Lubimov's search for Debussy's sound world on the basis of the composer's own piano rolls and written descriptions of his playing. To that end, Lubimov alternates between a 1913 Steinway he discovered in the Polish Embassy in Brussels (Paderewski is said to have played it) and a 1925 Bechstein; the two are heard together with Zuev in Afternoon of a Faun and the Nocturnes (orchestral works heard in duo-piano versions).