MULLIGAN: LEGACY

MULLIGAN: LEGACY (N2K Encoded Jazz, for PC and Mac, $16.98 each) Unlike rock, jazz is not a particularly visual medium. How many Ornette Coleman fans, say, make a habit of watching their music on the tube? Taking a tiny step on screen, these two discs inaugurate an enhanced-CD label that also promotes, via bundled software, an ambitious and attractive website for jazz lovers (www. jazzcentralstation.com). The hitch is, you can't look and listen at the same time. On the fusion-sodden Jazz Poll, outside of bite-size clips of three artists' remarks, you have to endure a bland theme song while viewing poll results, photos, essays, and recording credits. Pop the disc into a standard CD player, however, and you can read similar info in the booklet while enjoying the music of Miles Davis, Cassandra Wilson, and others. Enhancements to Lega- cy, a cursory career retrospective of Gerry Mulligan, are equally flat: a sketchy biography, scraps of archival film and peer tributes, a condolence note from Bill Clinton, and a poem the late baritone sax great wrote to his mother. Jazz Central Station: Global Jazz Poll Winners Vol. 1: C Gerry Mulligan: Legacy: C+