Sonic Trance (2003)

It's gotten to the point where you can't throw a copy of Herbie Hancock's ''Head Hunters'' without hitting a neo-trad jazz musician flogging some dubious ''fusion'' project. If half were as free-spirited, funky, and unashamedly freaky as this one, there'd be less reason to scoff. Taking off from Miles Davis' experiments circa ''Bitches Brew,'' Payton attempts to funnel a world of jazz experience through his trumpet, from early New Orleans braying and hard-bop barreling to Fela Kuti's Afrobeat and the electro-hybridizations of Jon Hassell and Ben Neill. Throw in broken-bottle percussion, synth noise, and Payton's woozy, Satchmo-style dancehall scatting, and you have one crazy jazz house party. SMOKIN' ''Cannabis Leaf Rag 1'' begins with sampled LP surface noise, recalling -- and then forgetting -- ''Maple Leaf Rag'' as it drifts off the ragtime-space continuum. History lessons can be fun.