Hooper of course was the man in the drum chair of the Crusaders, from their soul bop days as the Jazz Crusaders through their funkier days of the 1970s, until he went his own way in 1983. Truth be told, subsequent releases in his own guise have been more cruising than crusading, veering toward the easily listenable, but easily forgettable. Released a couple of years ago in the States on his label, this trio is cleanly recorded, rightly pushes the drummer to the fore and, like the title says, finds Hooper wearing Many Hats. Jazz Gems is the slightest of the three, employing a straight-ahead trio format as Hooper pays tribute to his jazz heroes. The material is predictable; ‘Caravan’, ‘Footprints’, ‘Night In Tunisia’ are all adroitly run through. But Kiatev somehow sucks the soul from much of the material. Mainstream Straight-Ahead is what it says on the tin, an easy swinging set themed around songs of water and fishing: so ‘Moon River’, ‘Good Bait’ and, um, ‘Swan Lake’ are affectionately revived. Eigsti is a more soulful pianist than Kitaev (check out the joyous dynamics on ‘How Deep Is The Ocean’) while brass and guitar add colour to otherwise unadorned arrangements. Many Hats reveals the more eclectic Hooper, pointing up, at last, his funkier side, as on the blues rap of ‘And Then There Was The Blues’, and the latin funk groove of ‘Samba Del Cielo’, which, like the R&B shabazz of ‘Hope’, evokes Hooper's Crusaders' heritage.