What do you think of when you see the words something else?

It could be any number of things. First thought: without the initial word's 'g' how about the classic 1958 Blue Note album by Cannonball Adderley perhaps that features Miles Davis and includes probably the most perfect instrumental version of 'Autumn Leaves' in existence - Hank Jones setting up Miles in the introduction is staggering.

But also what about - same year - and as a completely different radical alternative stylistically Something Else issued on the Contemporary label complete with not one but four exclamation marks by Ornette Coleman?

G FORCE GALORE

Now with just these two examples of naming coincidence to bear in mind - the words ''something else'' also leant themselves to many other things including English DJ Jez Nelson's 1990s Jazz FM radio show that spawned a leading indie radio production company called Somethin' Else now owned by Sony - it is not a difficult question to pose.

But which of all this pleasurable naming malarkey is closest in vision to what this remarkable gathering of luminaries - altoist Vincent Herring, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt, tenorist Wayne Escoffery, guitarist Paul Bollenback, pianist David Kikoski, double bassist Essiet Essiet and drummer Otis Brown III provide?

While the group may declaim its presence with much gusto just as the Ornette record does - although a whole lot less enthusiastically punctuation wise - but what's here on Soul Jazz is obviously closest to the Cannonball sound.

That should not at all be a surprise to followers of 59-year-old American master Herring who is a regular visitor to UK jazz venues particularly shrine-of-all-jazz-shrines east of the Vanguard, Ronnie Scott's - given that he played for a long time with Cannonball's brother the cornetist Nat who wrote the classic 'Work Song' and who shares a lot in common with what Cannonball's music is all about. Not only that, Herring also has worked with the great Cannonball drummer Louis Hayes and Brown is certainly faithful to the Hayes sound.

Soul Jazz - also a genre which to some in the more ravey davey acid-jazz loving era was usually recommodified to involve Jimmy Smith influenced Hammond organ or Lee Morgan inspired boogaloo bounty in the mix (neither directions are factors here) - begins with a classic hard bop Horace Silver piece 'Filthy McNasty' and moves on funkily to the late Pee Wee Ellis piece 'The Chicken' and changes the pace of John Coltrane classic ballad 'Naima' because it is done in a more driving fashion than usual stroked in very hip fashion by Brown and contains a storming bluesy solo from Paul Bollenback whom we dug recently on Troy Roberts' tasty Green Lights.

A Roy Hargrove connection here is a finger popping cover of 'Strasborg/St. Denis' a fluffy, delightful tune that was on 2008's Earfood and is the most recent of these pieces. It is one that does not belong to the classic era of the 1950s and 60s but fits right in because of the style, the arrangement and the consummate collegiality and congeniality that Soul Jazz is brim full of.

Bassist Essiet Essiet's beat on this track is a blast. Essiet goes way back with Herring. The Nigerian-American is on mid-noughties Herring HighNote album Ends and Means as is Pelt.

Recorded ''at a daylight session'' - early morning, or early afternoon, one wonders which - in February this year at Smoke in New York produced by Paul Stache and Damon Smith we kept returning to thoughts of Stanley Turrentine's 'Too Blue' - which was on the Bob James arranged 1973 CTI release Don't Mess With Mister T particularly flavoured by the silky riffing and comping of Kikoski in this Soul Jazz setting. Within 'Too Blue' there's riffery on 'Work Song' fed in later.

The version of Herbie Hancock's 'Driftin' - from the Second Great Miles Davis Quintet master's debut Takin' Off (Blue Note, 1962) is joyous. Pelt, Herring and Escoffery blend so well on that track it's uncanny and a lot of the success of the album is to do with the way the timbre and tones of horns match and fuse into a sum that is even greater than the parts. Album highlights also include Pelt's soloing on 'Filthy McNasty' - and by the way this year once again on his own records you gotta hear his Grammy deserving version of Jule Styne's 'People' on his latest HighNote release Tomorrow's Another Day.

Stunning from Something Else l-r: Jeremy Pelt, Essiet Essiet, Otis Brown III, Vincent Herring, Geoffrey Keezer, Paul Bollenback, Wayne Escoffery. Photo: via Smoke Sessions on Bandcamp