Unsuspecting visitors to the Sex Mob Web site will find not pornography, but a portal leading into a playfully eclectic avant-garde jazz quartet. As the name suggests, they do put plenty of sex into their music. Snippets of the bump and grind, the slow drag and the shimmy and shake remind post-boppers that jazz and sensuality were never total strangers and, in fact, get along quite well. They do so because Sex Mob's braying come-ons and groove-based struts contain sharp-edged musical wit and a healthy dose of free jazz.
On their previous four outings, the band brought everything from James Brown and Duke Ellington to James Bond theme songs under their seductive spell, but on their latest, "Dime Grind Palace," they stay with originals that artfully juxtapose disparate elements. Hip-hop bass lines, squealing horns, ragtime rhythms, psychedelic guitar and elephantlike trombone are all welded together with sheer exuberance. On this, their best work yet, the band's vision and performance are stronger -- and stranger -- than ever.
