Considering his many years tooling around the avant- jazz scene with cornet in hand, the fact that 1998's In the World is Olu Dara's first release comes as a bit of a surprise. That the album finds Dara closer to Taj Mahal than to Albert Ayler is even more surprising. Like Mahal, Dara bears the weight of musical anthropologist along with his playing duties on In the World. While handling the vocals and taking turns at guitar, aboriginal trumpet, and drums in addition to his usual cornet, Dara concocts a rich brew of Mahal's folk blues, his own jazz background, and various Carribean, traditional African and even hip-hop influences. The result is an album as rich and filling as the feast pictured before Dara on the disc's inside cover.

Just as spices only accentuate a truly great meal's natural flavors, Dara's deliberate playing, emotive lyrics and direct vocals push his wonderful songs reluctantly to the forefront. This unassuming disposition belies the album's craft and complexity, nearly leaving them unnoticed upon first listen, but in time, provides its success. Songs as earnest as the album's opening celebration, "Okra" and the clumsily exuberant, "Your Lips" would be rendered awkward were it not for their modesty. Here, they flourish among the sultry blues of "Rain Shower," the stark beauty of "Natchez Shopping Blues," and the roots- rock of "Zora."

Dara is more than ably assisted on the album by a host of musicians and background singers and even provides a jazzy backdrop for rapper Nas' best Lou Reed impression on "Jungle Jay." However, the key to the proceedings is his voice. Never excitable or boastful, his resonant, half- spoken vocals drift easily over the album's many landscapes, perhaps missing the note you might expect, but always resting on one that seems a better choice in retrospect.

Olu Dara has been playing for over twenty years now and Into the World is covered in the fingerprints of his veteran sensibilities. It's an intelligent work, as reserved as it is exultant. One only hopes our wait for his next release isn't nearly as long as the last.

-Neil Lieberman