Natty Dread

The words and beats are crucial to the power of Bob Marley's songs. When Hunter turns "Lively Up Yourself" and "Bend Down Low" from his Natty Dread into soul-jazz, organ-combo shuffles or "Dem Belly Full" into a Latin-jazz blowing session, he divorces them so completely from the originals that they lose their connection to Marley. They become generic '50s jazz tunes, and Hunter's quartet isn't good enough to make such material sound special. Not a single tune features a real reggae rhythm, and instead of making the tunes richer, the rearrangements make them blander. The album's one special moment comes on an imaginative interpretation of "No Woman, No Cry." It begins with a solo guitar rendition of "The Tennessee Waltz," which segues smoothly into a glowing, understated version of the Marley ballad. --Geoffrey Himes