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>> Some seasonal jazz hints

by LEN DOBBIN

-- Annie Dufresne eyes the linguistic divide -- Genetically programmed for your listening pleasure -- Depressing sounds for the holidays -- Electronic sounds for the hard-to-please -- The sound of Christmas evil -- This year's bumper crop of comp CDs made easy -- DJ sets in your Discman this season -- Stuffing the R&B renaissance in your stocking -- Country cracker Christmas -- This holiday season, rock the Chanukah bush in style -- Some seasonal jazz hints -- Yuletide mood swings

Buy Ken Burns: get in early on the PBS 10-part series Jazz, to be aired in January. Tied in with that event is a 5-CD box-set and a single CD compilation, The Best of Ken Burns' Jazz. As well there are 22 well-chosen compilations by single artists, divided between Verve and Columbia. Count Basie, Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughan and Lester Young are on Verve. Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Dave Brubeck, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Herbie Hancock, Fletcher Henderson, Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk are on Columbia. These would be especially interesting for the neophyte--the avid collector will have most of the material. There is also a coffee-table book available with home videos due in January.

Buy Canadian: check out the wide variety of new Canadian jazz releases. For the piano fan there is Dave Restivo's debut Prayer For Humankind(ness) and Only Trust Your Heart by veteran Ian Bargh. Jazz bass enthusiasts will enjoy Les Trois Michel, by Michel Donato, and Brian Hurley's overdue Atmosphere. The trumpet is well represented--Guido Basso guests on Chase Sanborn's Sweet & Low. There is sax galore care of Seamus Blake on Sun Sol Trio, and more sax on Music Is My Life, a Jim Galloway double CD including pianist Dick Wellstood, veteran Kirk MacDonald's latest, New Beginnings and leader John Nugent, joined by Andre Leroux, on Live at the Blue Note.

Buy tradition: Chicago, the Blues Today, on Vanguard, is a beauty of a 3-CD set featuring people like Otis Spann, Junior Wells, James Cotton, J.B. Hutto and Johnny Young.

Buy nostalgia: fond memories come with the 5-CD set The 1930s Recordings by the most musical of vocal groups, the Mills Brothers, with cameos from people like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway. There's also Brazilian Jazz, a 1962 gem from soundtrack fixture Lalo Schifrin.

Bye, bye: enjoy the shopping, the music and the holidays!