Like love or death maybe it's easier to say what jazz isn't, rather than what it is. But for the seven people we profile here, there's really no question about their music. It's simply what they play.

    York was the first Canadian university to offer jazz studies, and in 1995 won Jazz Report magazine's first award for best post-secondary jazz program in Canada.

    And, although we know it's too late to use these CDs as stocking stuffers, we offer up this jazz sampler anyway. Afterall, good music is always in season.

    David Mott puts his own unique take on jazz with his latest baritone sax solo CD The Sky Ringing in an Empty Bell released on the York Fine Arts label. Mott, who has been a professor of music at York since 1978, has a multifaceted career as a saxophonist, composer and improviser in New Jazz and New Classical Music.

    Mott's work is influenced by non-Western music. And he's deeply interested in music's shamanistic and healing aspects. Mott says his interest in martial arts informs his playing and composing. "None of this music on my CD would be possible if it weren't for the many important people in my life."

    Tenor saxophone player Mike Murley (BFA '86) might not be a card- carrying member of the Shuffle Demons anymore, but his horn virtuosity still makes him one of the most dazzling young sax players around. Murley's mellow sounds on his latest CD, conversation piece (Cornerstone Records), mark the fifth album to date for this Toronto-based musician. In a Globe and Mail review, jazz critic Mark Miller has noted Murley's move to more mainstream jazz from his Demon days, but says Murley's musical direction and interpretation is "still contemporary, in a stylistically non-specific way."

    Murley's music mates on conversation piece include pianist Dave Restivo, drummer Ted Warren, bassist Jim Vivian and trumpeter John MacLeod. Listeners might want to check out "L'hommard Bleu" and "George is Gone" (on the passing of George's Spaghetti House in Toronto).

    Singer Rita di Ghent (BFA '89) is busy creating a new kind of music she calls "Sprawl." Says Ghent: "My music seems funky and fun on the outside, but it's really not heavy. I guess you might call my best work socially-conscious positive rap."

    Her latest CD called Mindin' the Shop (Groove Productions) ranges from tunes such as "Missing you/Lover Man" to more traditional standards like "Honeysuckle Rose" and "'Round Midnight."

    Di Ghent has plans for a new CD release in April with MOfunk Records.

    Guitarist Roy Patterson (BFA '84) has been making musical headlines recently. Since winning the top prize at the 1996 Montreal Jazz Festival in July, his quartet has toured Western Canada and performed in Ottawa, Montreal and at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

    The Coming of Angels (Unity) is his group's latest CD (his third), and the quartet is busily working on a new release on the Justin' Time label scheduled for release in March.

    When not performing, Patterson teaches jazz at the University of Toronto. Past CDs include The Release and The Acadiana Suite.