In an influential collection of essays called Shadow and Act, Ralph Ellison penned a rendering of jazz that, despite its broad characterization, still captures the music's elusive essence. "Each true jazz moment," he wrote,"springs from a contest in which each artist challenges all the rest, each solo flight, or improvisation, represents (like the successive canvases of a painter) a definition of his identity: as individual, as member of the collectivity and aslink in the chain or tradition. Thus, because jazz finds its very life in an endless improvisation upon traditional materials, the jazzman must lose his identity even as he finds it."

Perhaps no one better embodies Ellison's theoretical jazzman better than Wallace Roney. In the past five years, the trumpeter has asserted his position as one of the most salient voices in modern jazz. True to Ellison's prescription, Roney recognizeshis debt to the masters — but also understands that, to join their ranks, he has to challenge their conventions.

"When I was coming up, I had a lot of fun," Roney says, calling from his home in New Jersey. His voice is tinged with just a hint of nostalgia. "I played with a lot of great geniuses of music, and I got a chance to hang with them. Thatwas an everyday thing for me. But now, I'm older, and those guys are gone, and my position in the music has changed. So now I've become those guys that I looked up to."

Roney was still a student at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School when he landed his first professional gig — with Cedar Walton's band, which included Sam Jones and Billy Higgins. He was 15 years old. In the next few years, he would come torealize the great legacy of his instrument from such trumpet masters as Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Shaw, Clark Terry and Johnny Coles. Eventually, Roney's growing reputation reached his hero, Miles Davis. Davis adopted the young horn player as aprotg.

But, as Ralph Ellison might say, there comes a time when a jazz musician seeks out his own identity. Several years after Davis' death, Roney had developed a recognizable sound and released several excellent solo albums — but the Miles comparisonsstill abounded in the jazz press. Does the problem persist in 1997?

"By asking that question, you answer it," Roney says reprovingly. "I don't mind being the next Miles," he adds, "if 'the next Miles' means the next great trumpet player... or the next innovator. Or the next contributor, orthe next personality."

Roney's last album, an eponymous quintet outing, garnered favorable reviews and marked his strongest efforts as a leader and composer. His new CD, Village (Warner Bros.), once again showcases the trumpeter's broad artistic palette. Roney solosbeautifully on every track; his tone is dark and expressive in the lower register, and resonant on high notes. Village opens with several straight-ahead selections, as seen through Roney's progressive musical lens. The fifth track,"Aknaaba" (Nigerian for "Welcome"), is aptly named, for it ushers in five original compositions with a common emphasis on African rhythms. As a result, Village plays like an LP — the first "side" featuresstraight-ahead fare, while the second "side" takes a more ethnic approach.

"I originally went in to do a record based on some African rhythms, in an advanced straight-ahead way — not like Paul Simon, of course, and not like Afro-Cuban," Roney explains. "Well, two things happened. First of all, my drummer,Eric Allen, quit on me. Lenny [White] came in, and we had to start all over... So we did what we could in a short amount of time." In the middle of this project, Warner Bros. urged Roney to include a few standards. He responded to theirsuggestion with spirited renditions of Joe Henderson's "Inner Urge" and Cole Porter's "I Love You," both performed with characteristic verve by guests Michael Brecker and brother Antoine on twin tenors. "Then Chick [Corea]wanted to play on [the album]," Roney adds. "Chick is such a great piano player — how are you going to tell Chick Corea no?"Village opens with "Affinity," a spacious ballad penned by Corea and road-tested during thepianist's recent Remembering Bud Powell tour (for a while, the song went by "Wallace"). Corea plays on a total of five tracks, revisiting his classic Fender Rhodes sound on the pensive "Ebo" (which also features spiritedblowing by Pharaoh Sanders).

There are a few moments on the new CD that will, for some listeners, hauntingly recall the chemistry of Roney with recently departed drummer Tony Williams. Williams, who joined Miles Davis when he was 17, gave Roney the trumpet seat in his quintet in1985. The pair formed a musical and personal cohesiveness unlike all but the very best jazz partnerships, and remained close until Williams' unexpected death in February. On Village, Lenny White plays in Williams' powerful style, and his drumssound suspiciously familiar. "I tuned those drums," Roney says. "I learned from Tony."

"Tony meant as much to me as Miles meant to him," he says, before launching into a laudatory and effusive description of Williams' technical and creative skills. "Man, he was incredible," Roney recalls, then pauses. "I mean,I hate saying 'was.' I really hate it. I can't believe it. I'm still messed up over it. As a matter of fact, I had to come to grips with it a couple of months ago. I couldn't just sit here and keep crying, figuratively and literally, over the loss. Ifigured, well, he's responsible for putting me here, and he doesn't want me to back down. By crying, I'm backing down from stuff that I could be doing to keep that whole thing alive. So I had to just kind of chin up, and think of him with love, andjust pretend that he's right here with me on the stand."

Don't expect an aggressively forward-thinking musician like Roney to rest on his heels with the advent of a new album. "I still haven't gone where I wanted to go yet," he says of his latest compositional efforts. "I really want to playwhat I'm hearing. I haven't gotten a chance to really do that yet." Roney can't quite describe exactly which direction he's heading in, except to name some of the works that will serve as a launching point.

"It's like a combination of all the music that I've listened to in jazz, and then what would have happened next," he says cryptically. "So...Nefertiti and A Love Supreme and Files de Kilimanjaro and Enwan Dishi andLifetime and early Weather Report, with a little Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. You know what I mean? All that is the basis. That's not even where it is. That's just the foreground."

Even if Village doesn't quite capture this uncharted sound, it's a great example of Roney's formidable presence as a leader and composer. With Lenny White, Geri Allen, Antoine Roney and Buster Williams in his traveling lineup, his upcomingCamden appearance promises to be a memorable event.

"I'm always looking to put my stamp on it," Roney says of his approach to the music. "'Taking it further' — some people get scared by that, because they think that means it's going to be over their heads. All it means to me is takingit further than I have done. So... every time you hear me, you're going to hear something, you're going to be more fulfilled."

The Wallace Roney Quintet will play at the Wiggins Park Riverstage in Camden on Monday, Aug. 11, at 8 p.m. Info: (609) 217-2170.

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