The Washington DC guitarist-composer Joel Harrison (and sometime rugged country-blues singer, though not here) has been cooking up his own diverse take on Americana since settling in New York at the end of the last millennium. Along the way he has made a couple of persuasive recordings in a potential disaster area mixing country music and jazz, and he's done so without sounding like another Bill Frisell apostle. His early ACT label CD Free Country in 2003 was a potent mixture of Harrison's jazz sensibilities, classic country songbook and a pre-fame Norah Jones. But his ability to straddle genres effectively means he has also successfully recorded a strings-led tribute to Paul Motian as well as one to his namesake George. The new CD Search is a return to the kind of third stream extended pieces he visited on the 2009 album The Wheel. Harrison meshes minimalist and contemporary classical composition form and strings arrangements with a healthy dose of Frank Zappa-style prog-opera and country-ish jazz fiddle. But contributions from such hardcore musicians as brawny tenor horn player Donny McCaslin on great form here, Vijay Iyer's bassist sideman Stephan Crump, and pianist Gary Versace ensure jazz is the core element. An early Olivier Messiaen piece is morphed into a deliciously hymnal-tinged, Charles-Lloyd-like ballad and on tracks that include an Allman Brothers cover, there's room also for Harrison's tastefully haunting bluesy rock guitar. If it all sounds too liberal with its source material well it is; but Search still makes for a gripping musical journey all the same.