Mark Weinstein was in the 1960s better known as a trombonist when he played w/ Herbie Mann and various Latin-Jazz ensembles before leaving the music for academia. Now he¹s back, embracing both the flute and his trad Jewish roots with Shifra Tanzt ­ Jewish Jazz Ensemble, a quartet that interprets Jewish/Hebraic folk tunes is a jazz style that maintains strong folk overtones and even hints of classical (baroque) music.

For the uninitiated to such kindly culture-clashes (see also: Andy Statman, John Zorn, The Klezmatics), there’s plenty of haunting, minor-key melodies that sound vaguely Middle Eastern and/or Balkan, but the rhythms and solos are fluid post-bop jazz, ranging from the pensive (Kandel’s “Hora/Der Gasn Ningun”) to the sorrowful (the J.S. Bach-inflected, “Scarborough Fair” – like “Rosh Hoshana Nigunim”) to the somewhat uptempo (the Coltrane-meets-Paul Winter-meets Greek wedding band “Frailach No.4/Bulgar”).

Weinstein has a clean, welcoming tone on the flute, Brad S has a Jim Hall-with-teeth approach to the guitar, and Richmond and Haddad provide plenty of tense, subtly volatile rhythmic snap.

Another selling point is all 13 tunes have any appealing compactness to them ­ everyone says what they need to say then moves on, without any extraneous blather. In fact, Shifra Tanzt would make for a nice introduction not only to “ethnic” jazz but to jazz neophytes in general ­ take heed, you gift-givers.