" data-original-title="" title="">Ezra Weiss's debut big-band recording, We Limit Not the Truth of God, is actually a suite written for his two young children to help them understand and embrace the often confusing and chaotic world in which we live. It is thus entirely appropriate that the album was recorded (with an audience) in a church, Portland (OR)'s historic Alberta Abbey. What is not quite clear is the referent "we" in the album's presumptuous title. Is that "we" as in "everyone"? If so, more than a few designees who are included in such an unconfined citation may not agree, as many people do not subscribe to the concept of a God, let alone not limiting His truth. But perhaps by "we" Weiss meant himself, his family, friends and orchestra. That would at least place the term in a more equitable framework.

Be that as it may, what is most important in an appraisal such as this is the music itself, almost all of which was written and arranged by Weiss. The concert numbers eleven selections, four of which are spoken messages to his children by the composer. While they may be enlightening, at times even profound, they clearly are not jazz. The instrumental tracks that follow each narrative are based loosely on its premise, a way of expressing musically the sentiments embodied in Weiss's verbal counsel. The fourth of those recitals, which paints a rather drab and remorseless picture of today's landscape in America, precedes the album's more enheartening title song, excerpted from an 1853 psalm by George Rawson and sung a cappella by the seventeen-member Camas High School choir with further narration by Weiss.

The half-dozen instrumentals begin with the powerful "Fanfare for a Newborn" whose chorale-like opening segues into a full-throated samba featuring