Pianist Nuccio Intrieri is one of Italy's most prized musical possessions. A consummate stylist who is at home almost anywhere in the jazz pantheon, he is perhaps most comfortable stretching post-bop tunes to the breaking point with a boatload of contrapuntal sawing and Paul Bley-like elegance. This nine-selection program teams him with drummer Adam Nussbaum and bassist Harvie Swartz for a program of mostly originals -- though you'll be asking yourself who wrote the tunes since they sound so familiar yet are unidentifiable -- as well as Bud Powell's "Celia," Monk's "Ruby My Dear," and Victor Young's "Beautiful Love." The standards are fine, but it's Intrieri's lush originals that are the news here. From the gorgeous, slippery hard bop of "N.Y.," it's obvious that Intrieri has a command of the language. He floats through striated harmonies and ostinatos and then punches the deck home with a series of staggering 16ths centered on D major while double-timing the rhythm section. On "Flying Away," the high-register arpeggios state the ripping melody line in 12/8 and shift into 16/8 within eight measures. Swartz and Nussbaum sound comfortable keeping up with Intrieri's wild improvisational bursts, but he's like Horace Silver unleashed, stripping down a solo to the basic harmony and then building it up into something else with lightning-quick shifts in tempo and groove -- turning it into a Cuban son before it's all over! Jazz My Dear is certainly that and more; it's a wondrous, upbeat, and deft offering by Italy's most revered keys king. ~ Thom Jurek