'Felicidade'Gary Morgan and Panamericana! (CAP) (out of four) 'Song for Chico'Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra (Zoho) 'The Latin Side of Wayne Shorter'Conrad Herwig (Half Note) Afro-Cuban jazz, sometimes called Latin jazz, can go a number of ways, as three current albums show. Gary Morgan's "Felicidade" features Panamericana!, a hefty band of 22 pieces. It includes French horns and tuba at times to produce a sound that is gigantic, but never loses its swing. Baritone-sax player Terry Goss fits particularly well in the band's deep sound. Meanwhile, Arturo O'Farrill leads his traditionally sized Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra on "Song for Chico," dedicated to his late father, Chico, a composer-arranger-bandleader. While this band has a more common big-band feel, it is not lacking in weight or good arrangements. Finally, in a small-group sense, Conrad Herwig leads seven and sometimes eight players in his continuing translations of classic jazz into Latin forms. Like his explorations of the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, the interpretations are good, but their necessity is questionable. Need there be a Latin version of "Footprints"• Probably not, even if it is pleasant. -- Bob Karlovits

'State of Nature'Stanley Jordan (Mack Avenue) Some music fans look at Stanley Jordan's tapping guitar style as a gimmick; others as signs of genius. Either way, it is a highly individual technique that gives "State of Nature" its own sound. The three-time Grammy Award nominee offers 14 tunes from Miles Davis' "All Blues" to the andante from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. Between them, there are nine originals and other jazz classics such as Horace Silver's "Song for My Father." Besides his virtuosic guitar play, Jordan offers some piano, adding another voice to the group that also features bassist Charnett Moffett and drummers David Haynes and Kenwood Desmond. The percussive nature of the tapping technique creates a sound that is less effective on ballads, but he is able to get away from that weakness by using a rock-flavored legato on "Shadow Dance." That is so effective, he should do it more often. -- Bob Karlovits

'Breakout'Miley Cyrus (Disney) Robert Hazard's about to get a lot richer. That's thanks to Miley Cyrus, the Disney tween money-printing princess who, on her second album under her own name, has recorded the Philadelphia rocker's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," which already did quite handsomely by Hazard with Cyndi Lauper's iconic 1984 hit version. In Cyrus' hands, "Girls" isn't a feminist rallying cry so much as a call for help from a super-earning, overworked 15-year-old who just wants to be, you know, normal. A similar theme is explored in the annoyed fuzz-rocker "Fly on the Wall," in which Cyrus just wishes peeping paparazzi types would mind their own beeswax. More globally conscious is the well-meaning but frankly terrible "Wake Up America," in which Cyrus leads a fist-pumping campaign for green awareness while admitting "I don't know what all this means." It's a tricky business to transition to the almost-grown-up world without leaving a 10-year-old fan base behind, and "Breakout" stumbles trying to balance Avril-lite pop punkers with saccharine ballads like "Goodbye." That "if you text it, I'll delete it," line in the kiss-off first single, "7 Things," is pretty cute, though. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

'Object 47'Wire (Pink Flag) Formed during the clamor of Brit punk's first wave (its 1977 debut, Pink Flag, came months after the Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols"), Wire has never made things easy. Ominous vocalists-songwriters Colin Newman and Graham Lewis, guitarist Bruce Gilbert and drummer Robert Grey leapt from sharded art punk ("Chairs Missing") to noir electronics ("154") to irked industrial ("The Ideal Copy") to aggressive skronk ("Send") during the band's stop 'n' start career. But two things they've never done are record without Gilbert and create gorgeously celebratory pop. Wire starts this new adventure with its most chipper track, "One of Us," a speeding, hummable tune with an epically melodic bass, an impassioned Newman vocal and one of its most spiteful lyrics in "one of us will live to rue the day we met each other." Neither the catty catchphrases nor the contagious choruses end there. While Newman provides warm crunching guitar sounds, Lewis' rueful voice picks through the Dadaist lyrics and tipsy melody of "Are You Ready?" with oddball tenderness. Wire does big rock with dense layers ("Perspex Icon"). Wire does lean funk with colorful choruses ("Hard Currency") while maintaining its patented looming, distanced, cool demeanor. Wire may sound warmer than ever, but you'll never hear them sweat. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

'Pinetop Perkins and Friends'Pinetop Perkins and Friends (Telarc) At 95, Pinetop Perkins doesn't have a lot of blues-playing friends who approach his age. Only the 82-year-old B.B. King, who cuts it up with Pinetop on the latter's tribute to their native state, "Down in Mississippi," comes close to the great piano man here. The other guests, including Eric Clapton and Jimmie Vaughan, are decades younger. Pinetop, however, has no trouble keeping up. The selections are sometimes overly familiar ("Got My Mojo Workin'," "Sweet Home Chicago"), but the Muddy Waters sideman is in sharp, nimble-fingered form. Spry on the boogies and soulful on the ballads, he shows how a master can keep even well-worn material sounding fresh. -- The Philadelphia Inquirer

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