Independently wealthy

In every genre, interesting new music is continually slipping onto the market under the commercial radar. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in jazz, where publicity budgets are limited and most music appears on small labels and increasingly as independent releases. Fortunately, the advent of online downloading services such as iTunes has been a boon to both producers and consumers of this music, allowing access to recordings not easily found in stores. Here is a pair of current recordings available online and well worth seeking out.

"The Source" (World Culture Music) Drummer Kendrick Scott takes flight as a leader on this airy and empathetic set helming his band Oracle, which is less a working group than a gathering of 11 of today's fine young players, each bringing a distinct instrumental voice or lyric contribution. A patient and attuned leader, Scott never overwhelms the set, but imparts pace and fluidity while leaving ample room for melodic exploration. This sensibility makes "The Source" feel like a unified, complete project despite variations in personnel and instrumentation that range from Scott's duet "Search for Noesis" with Mike Moreno, one of three guitarists here (Lage Lund and Lionel Loueke are the others), to larger-group items like the active, surging title track or the cinematic, mystically tinged "Memory's Wavering Echo. "

One of this record's most appealing qualities is the way it forges unity from the diversity of influences and ideas that help make jazz fresh today. There's a classic vocal piece featuring Gretchen Parlato ("Journey"), and abstract vocal rhythmic phrasings by Scott on three other tracks; the Fender Rhodes-led "VCB" pushes its sound through a layer of electronic effects, and the only song not composed by Scott is "107 Steps" by Björk, whom he's credited as a major influence on his artistic development. By the confidence and groundedness he exhibits in weaving these strands into such a complex, coherent, and relaxed recording, Scott shows his artistic kinship with fellow Houstonians Robert Glasper (who appears on this album as well) and Jason Moran, and establishes himself as a new force on the national scene. The album is available from the online service CD Baby and as a download from iTunes.

"Harlem Homecoming " (Ujam Records) Bostonians may remember multi-reedman Salim Washington for his leadership in the 1990s of an esteemed, inspired local ensemble called the Roxbury Blues Aesthetic. Their sole, and superb, recording, 1997's "Love in Exile," was a powerful statement of jazz in the post-Coltrane tradition, steeped in the legacy of the Black Arts movement while wearing its agenda lightly. The same bittersweet brew of urban exhilaration and melancholy pervades the work of Washington's new venture, the Harlem Arts Ensemble, and for good reason: After many years in Boston, Washington now teaches at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, and his key Roxbury associates have moved their operations, at least part of the time, to the Big Apple with him. They include four of the most distinct and exciting voices on their instruments, Kuumba Frank Lacy (trombone), Waldron Ricks (trumpet), Melanie Dyer (viola), and Kurtis River (reeds); nine other players round out the assembly, putting the Harlem Arts Ensemble into the middle ground of a "mini-big band" that is not always easy to hold together, businesswise or artistically.

This is music with, in a word, soul -- and also politics, most explicitly on "In Search of Sane Alternatives," which includes a spoken passage critiquing developments in public life since 9/11. Elsewhere, the message proceeds more by way of aesthetic and historical allusion. The fast-paced title track conjures up the bustling energy of 125th and Lenox, and "How Great Thou Art " leaves the listener in a place of unashamedly religious exaltation.

There's a lot going on here, and one of the great pleasures of this disc is witnessing how the musicians accomplish the journey: They draw on the freedom to blow, honk, and wail set out by the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra , yet the whole is orchestrated with a deft touch, and held together by the magic of collective improvisation. Washington and pals still turn up from time to time in Boston and are worth looking out for; this album came out late last year on the small Boston label Ujam, but it's also available as a download from iTunes.