Edit: Unfortunately, the images originally included in this post are gone, because of hosting problems in late 2009. My apologies.

There’s been a dearth of good jazz on Jamendo these days. I don’t mention that as a fault; in fact, I blame myself for that as much as anyone. I can be very picky when it comes to jazz; some is too fast or flaky, others are too experimental and strange.

I love The James Quintet and Eau Forte, and I have an appreciation for Michiboux and pharmacopia, but there comes a point where I’ve drifted out of “jazz” and into something different. And it has been a while since something brought me back to center.

Lucky me, Paolo Pavan has come to my rescue.

Utterly fantastic, old-school jazz. No synthesizers, no beat machines or blended songs. This is very clean, very professional, classy, sassy jazz — like core Miles-Coltrane-Monk works. There are some independent styles in there too, not just traditional smoky club jazz numbers. One or two are uptempo tracks, and one even has a faint Latin flair to it.

Which makes it an excellent, well-rounded jazz album. Jazz isn’t for everybody (nothing is), but if you have the least appreciation for stylish, performance jazz without electronic influences or computer-assisted editing, this is one you need to download.