Sweet jazz sounds with the packaging to match

We're obsessed with packaging this week. Also with new releases by alt-rock originals Okkervil River, soul revivalist Raphael Saadiq, and oldies-but-goodies Stevie Nicks and The Cars.

ALL THAT JAZZ: In their uphill battle to win mainstream success, jazz labels and artists long ago learned how to "compensate" with superior recording technology and packaging that would attract music consumers, even if they weren't jazz heads per se.

Newly proving the point is a coffee-table book-styled tome and CD collection, "First Impulse: The Creed Taylor Collection 50th Anniversary" (Hip-O Select, A), and also a first-of-its-kind multimedia project, "An Evening With Dave Grusin" (Heads Up, B+), available on CD, Blu-ray and (tah-dah) iPad app.

In starting up the label Impulse! (with an exclamation) in the 1960s, Taylor spent big on shiny, gatefold packages with high-grade photos and informative liner notes. The producer also focused his talent sonically, knowing the casual listener wouldn't sit still for the rough-hewn riffs that low-budget jazz labels accepted as "the norm."

This new Impulse! celebration gathers the first six albums made under Taylor's short reign - before he was lured away by Verve. The material by Ray Charles ("Genius+Soul=Jazz"), John Coltrane ("Africa/Brass"), Gil Evans ("Out of the Cool"), Oliver Nelson ("Blues and the Abstract Truth") - plus two sets by the deliciously warm and fresh trombone choirs of Kai Winding and J.J. Johnson - holds up magnificently.

MULTIMEDIA MUSIC: Best known for their GRP pop-jazz label and for Dave Grusin's keyboard-based scoring of films and TV-show themes (including "On Golden Pond," "Tootsie" and "St. Elsewhere"), the team of Grusin and Larry Rosen were also first out of the gate with an all-digital jazz CD (D.G.'s "Mountain Dance"). Plus, they delivered the first DVD music title with a 5.1 surround-sound track (a Grusin and friends take on "West Side Story") and pioneered online music sales via N2K!

Now with "An Evening with Dave Grusin," revisiting a lot of the above-mentioned music in smart, sometimes orchestral concert-hall treatments, we get to enjoy the content in conventional CD and high-definition Blu-ray video versions, plus the first companion iPad album app - designed to serve as a new-age variant on the rich album packages of yore.

The $9.99 download (created by ROBA Interactive) delivers finger-flipped artist bios and photos, and touch-to-start videoclips of the talent, including singers Patti Austin, Jon Secada and Monica Mancini, and instrumentalists Gary Burton, Nestor Torres and Arturo Sandoval. We also get insights on the backstage guys, including producer Phil Ramone and the especially enlightening engineer Frank Filipetti, who lets iPad users interactively "isolate" sounds in his mix.

This app also offers short tastes of the concert music, and the ability to buy complete album tracks from the iTunes store. At the moment, those full tunes are not then integrated into the iPad app. But if/when all gets mashed together, this fresh concept could really fly.

SOUL-SATIONAL: Urbane soul man Raphael Saadiq revitalizes the stomping, rocking and sensual styles of the past - think Sly Stone and Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder - in fresh and high-flyin' fashion on "Stone Rollin" (Columbia, B+). It's a gas, gas, gas.

NICKS OF TIME: A bad case of the flu kept Stevie Nicks from the Borgata last weekend. Still, nothing should keep fans from "In Your Dreams" (Reprise, A-), Nicks' first new album in a decade, and well worth the wait. With the likes of Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics) and Glen Ballard offering writing/production assistance, and L.A.'s most seasoned sidemen sitting in, the set fine-tunes Nicks' time-honored "I'm a difficult loner who'll screw with your head" narratives. She also pays poignant homage (with ex-spouse and Fleetwood Mac mate Lindsey Buckingham) to fallen war heroes on "Soldier's Angel" and to favorite getaways ("New Orleans" and "Italian Summer"). And Nicks draws another line to old-world folk with her rockin' cover of "Annabel Lee."

Likewise back from the long-lost, The Cars fill up with a full tank of electo-percolating rock on "Move Like This" (Hear Music, B). The group remains ironically "happy" sounding even at their most lyrically cynical. Check out "Sad Song," which hearkens to "My Best Friend's Girl." I'm missing Ric Ocasek's sweeter-sounding co-vocalist Ben Orr, especially when Ric has to croon the "Drive"-like "Soon." But arguably the long-feuding Cars never could have parked together again had Orr not passed on.

LYRICS 101: Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff is such the poet, his record label packs a handsome folio of lyrics with the new OR album "I Am Very Far" (Jagjaguwar, A-). Given the unexpected mental connections that Sheff makes, and the set's dense, strings-thickened production, you'll definitely appreciate the crib sheets. A perfect next move for fans of Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley and Robert Plant.

Also killing me softly with their words are Eliza Gilkyson's thorny folk pop "Roses At the End of Time" (Red House, B+) and "The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2" (Nonesuch, A), wherein the composer revisits "Dixie Flyer," "Baltimore," "My Life Is Good" and "Cowboy" in less-is-more voice 'n' piano performances.