In their twenty year history as a band, these five New Orleans jazzmen have developed a sound completely their own, embodying the highest ideals of art, while maintaining a childlike, fingerpainting quality. They are accessible, yet entirely original; experimental, yet their music is as sensual as it is cerebral.

VoodooBop is full of the boundary-busting expressionism that makes them the most seductive and mind-expanding jazz group in New Orleans. The title cut opens like Elevado (their last record), with the muscular swing of drummer John Vidacovich, joined by James Singleton’s swelling, melodic bass. The other players come in to state a classic Astral Project theme, so infectious it should be pop, yet so intricate and conducive to improvisation that it must be gourmet jazz.

As the VoodooBop excursion continues, however, we realize we will be venturing further out than on previous records. “Sombres en la Noche (Shadows In The Night)” has slow, hypnotic chiming from Torkanowsky’s piano and Masakowski’s guitar, like footsteps through a cemetery, which alternates suddenly with a “double-timed” Latin section.

It’s a ghostly tango: unsettling, yet fanciful and mesmerizing: “Foxy Roxy” dives head first into instrumental rock, with Vidacovich pounding his kit, and Masakowski playing searing guitar licks. Except for the intro and ending, Singleton’s “The Queen Is Slave To No Man” is improvised spontaneously, taking on an otherworldly quality, like watching the earth from the moon. There’s even a vocal spotlight for Vidacovich, who lends his throaty charm to the Hill/Robeson tune “Old Folks.”

Somehow, this ensemble is able to draw from such diverse sources and ideas, while never losing their cohesive and unique sound.