With its droll graffiti-style titles and hip art brut cover painting, you expect cool and fresh from this album. And you get it. But it quickly becomes apparent that an apter title for this collection by multi-instrumentalist Doug Robinson and seven very talented colleagues might be "Jazz Can't Hurt You."

Which is good news for me, because jazz usually does hurt me. With so many players choosing to sleepwalk endlessly over the same old grooves, I usually cross the street whenever I hear jazz coming. But Robinson and friends are a different story. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, they happilly serve up a 64-minute set of jazz-rock-fusion that is delightfully free of hackney and self-indulgence. Melodic and tightly composed and arranged in the urbane manner of the Grusins or The Flecktones, this warm, hospitable album won't hurt you a bit.

Instrumentally, Robinson has assembled a crack ensemble of accomplices. Just listen to soprano saxaphonist Hollis Gentry III at play like a kid in a sandbox on "Mandu." Or let the screaming, kick-ass guitar of Byron Hori sweep you away on "Lizbarber." Throughout, Don Boomer's acoustic percussion and Robinson's electronic version is always right on the money, as fresh as it is thoughtful. Robinson himself, whether on piano, guitar, or sitar, excels in saying a mouthful with just a sprinkle of notes.

Art Can't Hurt You is a listener-friendly frolic (even during the moody spells) that is about as state-of-the-jazz-can't-hurt-you as an album can be.