" data-original-title="" title="">Brent Laidler has released mainstream jazz albums infused with a cheerful attitude throughout his career. They tend to feature all original tunes, but unlike most jazz releases featuring (cursed with?) the All-Original Syndrome, his tunes are catchy, accessible, and sometimes even mood-enhancing. Given that hundreds—if not thousands—of small group jazz albums are released each year, it can be challenging to find a distinctive feature to hang onto when confronted with a new one. Laidler is canny enough to realize that some kind of theme or hook helps let one project stand out from another.

For Hidden Gems, the guitarist/composer has chosen to use, as he explains, "some well-crafted changes that I thought were beautifully compelling, but to the best of my knowledge never made it into a modern Real Book." So, what we have is a collection of what the fancy-pants types among us call "contrafacts"—songs based on the changes of other songs. Think