Like many of his A-list peers in the new wave of New York jazz, Paul Carlon writes vivid songs without words. The title of this brand-new cd is deliberately forceful: the sax player/bandleader wants to bring jazz back to its origins as dance music, popular music. The dozen tracks on this album are tastefully traditional yet ambitiously melodic, blending an impressive mix of American, Latin  and Afro-Cuban jazz influences, from delta blues to rhumba, along with plenty of peak-era Ellington as well. This is an album you walk away from humming its tunes to yourself, an achievement that too few jazz artists these days are shooting for. Trombonists Ryan Keberle and Mike Fahie get most of the solos, along with trumpeter Dave Smith; the reliably imaginative William “Beaver” Bausch (who also plays with panstylistic keyboard goddess Greta Gertler) is on drums. When singer Christelle Durandy contributes, Carlon uses her voice as an instrument: she appears and then leaves in the same way that the reeds or horns are featured and then take a backseat. Excellently incisive pianist John Stenger has a devious habit of going straight into salsa for a few seconds whenever he has a chance.

The cd opens with the long, seven-minute Backstory, building over a catchy 4-note descending progression, vocals in for a couple of verses and then down to just vox and some percussionistic revelry from Bausch, then back to a long, slowly crescendoing trumpet solo. Track two, Canto de Xango is a balmy blues building around Carlon’s sax, slowly gaining momentum as the horns and the piano come in and play off and around each other. The octet’s version of Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out sounds an awful lot like Ray Charles’ Let’s Go Get Stoned – hmmm, what could that mean – and features a big, Gil Evans style arrangement.

Mambo Pakanoa is straight up mambo and, true to its source, quickly becomes hypnotic. New Life opens with ominous piano, tense and suspenseful, the sax and bass pensively embellishing the underlying theme. It’s a particularly strong, memorable composition, something that wouldn’t be out of place in the Pamela Fleming catalog with its troubled, salsa-inflected melody. The Limiter, arguably the best cut on the album, could be a soundtrack piece from a Bunuel film, opening with train-whistle horns, the piano determinedly building to a dance.

The brief, emphatic title track is the most overtly Ellingtonian cut on the cd (even though a reggae beat cuts in and out), Carlon’s sax blazing a path between the horns and the piano much like the late Harry Carney would do. Then Carlon coolly picks up his flute and retraces his steps after the first chorus. The band’s version of Hard Time Killing Floor Blues is surprisingly minimalist, considering how how many people are on the arrangement, with insistent horns setting the melody off over gingerly sidestepping bass for a verse before they build it up, circle around and pick up the pace a little every time. The cd also has a handful of straight-up Afro-Cuban numbers as well.

Don’t let the remarkable accessibility of the melodies scare you away: this cd is way too hot for Lite FM. It’ll take you back to an age when this kind of stuff was what all the cool latin kids, and a whole lot of the cool anglo kids were spinning on their turntables on Saturday night. The Paul Carlon Octet play the cd release show on Thurs Aug 28 at 7 PM at Cachaca, 35 W 8th St. in the Village.