Toussaint’s first solo album in a decade is even better than his 2006 collaboration with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse.

Like that album, The Bright Mississippi’s a Joe Henry production, but it’s a different beast entirely: after a 50-year career straddling R&B, soul, jazz, gospel and pop, Toussaint flexes his jazz piano chops in a purely instrumental album. Toussaint leads a crack young band including Marc Ribot, Don Byron and Nicholas Payton, plus guests Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman, through an insanely wild romp that is about as funky as I can imagine an entirely acoustic ‘jazz’ record ever getting. Bechet, Reinhardt, Morton, Monk, Ellington and Strayhorn classics sound as alive as they ever have, in a career high for a great elder statesman of American music.