Memphis still has it going on! On this disc, recorded in Sam Phillips' studio and co-engineered by Roland Janes and Scott Bomar, guitarist Calvin Newborn -- younger brother of doomed keyboard genius Phineas Newborn Jr. and himself one of the unheralded architects of the Bluff City's modern music legacy -- has re-emerged with a splendid set of straight-ahead small-group jazz.

Newborn's Montgomery-like chording and dexterous lead work are front and center here, but just as tasty are Herman Green's tubular-toned flute explorations and postbop-flavored sax lines, and the propulsive yet understated swing of drummer Renardo Ward and bassist London Branch. Trumpeter Scott Thompson's tone -- velvet, but girded with steel -- clearly shows the influence of Miles Davis, although his linear improvisational ideas are all his own. Keyboardist Donald Brown can't approximate the rococo genius of the late Phineas Jr. -- whose ghost, along with that of patriarch Phineas Sr., haunts every track here -- but on his own terms he's in command of a winning combonation of sureness and exploratory panache.

Idealogues who insist that iconoclasm is the only appropriate artistic stance for times as dark as ours may find this set too "main-stream," too swinging, just too damn happy. But for those who can hear -- and feel -- the triumph of the human spirit in a joyously probing solo, a springtime-fresh melody line, or hip and insinuating rhythmic swing, this collection of "new born" music will sound like nothing less than the dawning of a new day.