Sometimes you get sick of jazz. It’s understandable; too many sound-alike record sessions, too many showoffs, too many people running scales instead of playing tunes. But when you find yourself in that mood, there’s one sure cure, other than going back to the classics: spinning Michael Zilber’s new CD, Crossroads: Brooklyn to Berkeley. Pairing the Vancouver-born, California-based saxophonist with mentor David Liebman and a powerful New York rhythm section, the disc harks back to the Blue Note ’60s, but it’s also as fresh as jazz should be.

And according to its maker, that’s entirely by design. Reached at his Bay Area home, Zilber confesses that he’s a “reformed Breckerholic”, referring to his friend Michael Brecker, whose all-the-notes-that-fit approach has dominated jazz saxophone for the past 20 years. Brecker makes it work, but in order for Zilber to find his own voice, he’s had to step back from his own considerable virtuosity and take stock of what he’s trying to say.

“Basically, I remember a composer I studied with a long, long time ago, a brilliant man in Boston named Robert DiDomenica,” Zilber explains. “And he said, ‘You can’t usurp Mozart on Mozart’s turf. You have to find your own turf.’ And so for a long time I’ve been wanting the music to be songful, to be melodic, and to have some kind of meaning. And that goes for the soloing, the interaction, the composing, and all of that. I get really, really bored when I hear cats just walk in and play all the licks they’ve practised in the practice room. It’s just boring to me.”

Compositional integrity is part of what makes Crossroads so attractive. Zilber’s a jazz rarity in that he has a doctorate in composition, and he takes care to outfit all of his pieces with bold melodies, surprising chord progressions, and the kind of contrapuntal twists rarely heard in improvised settings. But he’s also interested in what he calls “the fundamental cry”: that bluesy wail that is the emotional heart of the music. Jazz, he says, is “the ultimate meeting of head and heart”, and his sound lives up to that billing.

Alas, when he plays Vancouver he won’t be bringing his New York City pals. But with Oregon guitarist John Stowell and the local rhythm section of drummer Bernie Arai and bassist André Lachance onboard, the performances will not lack polish.

“In terms of chordal things, John and Ralph Towner probably have the most interesting voicings of anybody on guitar,” Zilber contends. “They’re so deep, and so rich. I don’t usually play with guitar players because my chords are so dense, but John is somebody who can cover them.

“The other thing is that John really listens,” he adds. “It’s funny to say that; it’s an article of faith that jazz is about being in the moment, about communication, about having a conversation—but when I started to think about it, there are a lot of cats who play in parallel; they’re playing their worked-out stuff together. But John listens, and I listen, and so we get to go places together—and that’s when it gets fun.”

The Mike Zilber/John Stowell Quartet plays Ironworks on Friday (December 1).