Jason Mraz

“Mr. A-Z”

Jason Hammersla

The Hartford Courant

The defining, disarming quality of Jason Mraz’s 2002 debut album, “Waiting for My Rocket To Come,” was the enthusiasm and joy with which he performed his homemade, hyper-literate pop songs. The key question, upon the release of his follow-up album, “Mr. A-Z,” is whether the last three years in the music business have drained that joy out of him.

As the album blooms, we find the familiar charismatic energy, from the thoughtful “Life Is Wonderful” to the fanciful “Wordplay,” the album’s first single. Mraz then broadens his palette with the amusing hip-hop pastiche “Geek in the Pink” and the Tin Pan Alley duet “Did You Get My Message?” with chanteuse Rachael Yamagata. Unfortunately, the album then tumbles into a series of lush piano- and string-based ballads that grow increasingly tedious.

Jessica Williams

“Live at yoshi’s” volume two

Owen McNally

The Hartford Courant

Although pianist Jessica Williams has been an A-list, first-call player who’s labored as a sidewoman for maestros ranging from Big Nick Nicholas to Charlie Haden, her most creative niche is as the leader of a jazz piano trio.

She’s in her glory here collaborating with bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Victor Lewis in this live performance at Yoshi’s, a jazz club in Oakland.

Williams steps off confidently with a lovely piano concerto version of Miles Davis’ “Flamenco Sketches.” Impressionist chords reverberate, then float away, creating a dream-like ambience.

On “Why Do I Love You?” she transforms the sweetness-and-light of Jerome Kern’s operetta-like melody into something far darker, more Freudian.

Hootie & The Blowfish

“looking for lucky”

Jason Hammersla

The Hartford Courant

Not much has changed for Hootie and the Blowfish, the band that went from platinum to punch line in what seemed like five minutes. Since their heyday in the late ’90s, none of the Blowfish has dropped out of the band or dropped into rehab. The standard “Behind the Music” special is conspicuously absent. And on their latest, “Looking for Lucky,” their sound remains essentially the same.

Hootie and the Blowfish still gives you predictably tuneful four-chord guitar pop, set behind Darius Rucker’s soul-tinged vocals. The melodic hooks are crafted with mathematical precision and polished to a fine gloss by producer Don Gehman. Indeed, tunes from “Hey Sister Pretty” to “A Smile” sound like they could have been recorded in 1994.

Unfortunately, the band’s one overwhelming weakness is still plainly evident. There seems to be an almost compulsive tendency to oversell those melodic hooks, repeating them ad nauseum and running them aground. Ultimately, the most appealing songs are the ones that stray most conspicuously from the formula, like the bluegrass leaning “Leaving” and the Southern blues ballad “Autumn Jones.”

Paul Anka

“Rock Swings”

Eric R. Danton

The Hartford Courant

Aging rockers such as Rod Stewart and Michael McDonald are turning to pop standards to keep their careers afloat, so there’s a certain parallelism in Paul Anka’s giving big-band treatment to a batch of rock songs on “Rock Swings.”

Yes, it’s downright weird hearing Mr. Teen Idol 1957 belting out Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” and Kurt Cobain surely never envisioned a Brill Building version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but there’s something exotic and fascinating about “Rock Swings.” Most of the 14 songs on the record were written in defiance of social norms and, especially, parental taste. Now, here’s some 64-year-old guy turning “Black Hole Sun” into a swingin’ lounge ballad. It’s like your dad dominating the mosh pit at a Hatebreed show.

Lyrics have taken a dissociative turn over the past 40 years, and what sounds acceptable screamed into a howling wall of distorted guitars doesn’t always hold up in a big-band setting as well as more literal sentiments do. Anka’s umpteenth album is certainly a novelty, but the man proves that rock can indeed swing.