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The Pamela Hines Trio’s new album, Drop 2, delivers top-drawer straight-ahead jazz. Featuring Hines on piano, John Lockwood on bass and Bob Guilotti on drums, the trio are totally in sync and make nice in the playground together, knowing when to take turns on the swing, and when to run away with the lunch money.

The opening cut is a Sunday morning coffee arrangement of the Beatle’s I Will, brewing with Hines’ thoughtful piano, gently making way for Lockwood’s sleepy bass, and unobtrusively underpinned by Guilotti’s easy percussion adding a little cinnamon spice.

Then, lest we get too comfy on the sofa, It Could Happen to You wakes us up like a quick shot of tequila, opening with Guilotti’s snickety drums, chased by Hines’ hoppin’ keys, with a wicked bass solo by Lockwood snuck in the middle of Guilotti’s effervescent sticks.

East of the Sun is a no-nonsense slice of upbeat jazz that grooves along with a bossa rhythm, while The Boy Next Door turns thoughtful again, showcasing a lovely conversation between the trio, philosophical without being pedantic.

Hines was raised in Boston and earned her Masters in Music, with honors, from the New England Conservatory in 1998. She wrote three of the eight tracks on the album, including the only two vocal tracks, Golden Romance, and Green Line. Both the vocal cuts are sung by April Hall and, frankly, their studied dissonance didn’t work for me—though this is largely compensated for when the musicians just settle down and begin jamming again in the interludes. The other Hines tune is the title cut, featuring a lovely esoteric piano which makes room for a thoroughly meditative bass, with unobtrusive drum brushes shooshing things along.

The album closes out with a rendition of the Rodgers and Hart standard This Can’t Be Love that simply flies. Paradoxically, the trio seems more ready to get playful, improvise, and find their groove on the tunes they cover than on Hines’ own compositions, where they at times come across constrained, as if working too hard to make things turn out right. But what the album does well, it does very well. And here are at least six cuts which are candy.