You can hear the strategy pay off on the first tune, a remake of the group’s “Black-eyed Pea,” and then throughout the rest of the album. On “Pea,” Jeff Raines’ gritty guitar lick starts off organically, then recycles into a sample that joins juicy B-3 melody and percolating rhythms. Sticky drum loops cue the start of “Two Clowns,” which eventually wanders into experimental noise and free jazz. “Bobski 2000″ allies thrashing drums with Ben Ellman’s nasty harmonica attack. And Raines’ woozy slide work meets multiple syncopated Moore tracks on “Jeffe 2000,” a page torn from bluesman R.L. Burnside’s book.

Here’s the irony: “Late for the Future,” even more than “Crazyhorse” (1998) or the group’s independently released 1996 debut, conveys a real sense of Galactic’s irresistible meld of Meters-style riffs, acid-jazz grooves and jam-band spontaneity. The key to the band’s success might just be the quality of the performances — regardless of the studio bells and whistles. Ringer singer Theryl “Houseman” de Clouet lends a sense of impassioned urgency to the project, beginning with the sexual frenzy churned up on “Thrill.” A veteran of jams with Allen Toussaint and the Neville Brothers, he belts, whispers and talks his way through throaty intimations of carnal pleasures: “You bring out the freak in me.”

De Clouet pushes hard again on the slow-grooving “Century City” and “Action Speaks Louder Than Words,” a gospel-funk tune borrowed from late-’70s band Chocolate Milk. Those tracks, and “Thrill,” benefit from the rich background vocals of Hollygrove, de Clouet’s longtime a cappella group. The evocative, angst-spiked “Running Man” also features the singer, as does the slinky “Vilified,” pumped up with a soaring, wordless vocal counterline provided by Swedish-born singer Theresa Andersson, formerly with the Anders Osborne Orchestra.

Galactic might best be described as a band torn between four lovers — the lean lines and deep-fried-gumbo grooves of the Meters, the old-school soul approach of their flexible, seasoned singer, multiple jazzy directions and, particularly onstage, wide-open improvisational freedom. It’s the kind of mix no studio can contain.

These players, steeped in Crescent City musical voodoo, are bent on exploring the rhythmic intricacies and tonal colors of the Afro-Cuban, Latin and African traditions that have so influenced Big Easy innovators. Jazz’s future, you might say, is being reconfigured in the port city where its foundations were conceived by slaves in Congo Square in the 1800s.

Los Hombres Calientes, with singer-percussionist Yvette Summers, pianist Victor “Red” Atkins and bassist Edwin Livingston, is rapidly winning over audiences at home and, increasingly, around the world. The band’s ascendancy isn’t exactly a shock. The players have consistently managed to blow out the last two editions of the Jazz and Heritage Festival, and have continued to dispense fuel for the feet and inspiration for the spirit at clubs all over town.

Marsalis and Summers deliver big and little beats with complex yet accessible polyrhythms. Mayfield, meanwhile, uses his solos to zigzag under, over and through the changes. The trumpeter, who earned raves for his recent “Live at the Blue Note” (Half Note), may be the city’s next great horn, following in the footsteps of Nicholas Payton, Terence Blanchard and, yes, Wynton. Jason Marsalis, too, has shown sparks as a leader and composer, as evidenced by his own “Year of the Drummer” CD.

“Vol. 2,” the follow-up to the sextet’s 1998 debut disc (recorded after the band had played but a handful of shows), is artier and more ambitious than its predecessor. A three-part “Cuban Suite” opens the record with a mournful string quartet, slides into a crawling yambu and slips into son, mambo and comparsa. The strings reappear on “Tangeaux-zon,” a tango with an African bridge.

The world tour also leads to Brazil, for the intoxicating samba and batucada of “Blues De Enredo,” and later to Jamaica, with “Rasta Renegade,” its sticky accents glued together by Ronald Markham’s Hammond B-3. “Fongo Sunk” was inspired by the music of Afro-Cuban drummer Chongito and the brooding call-and-response piece “Alabi Oyo E” is named for the king of the ancient Nigerian city of Oyo.

American pop enters the picture, too, with a mellow remake of the R&B hit “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and a two-fer closer that has the remarkably flexible outfit laying down seriously soulful grooves for marvelous reinventions of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” (Summers appeared on the original) and George Clinton’s “We Want the Funk.”

By the end of the record, it’s pretty clear that Los Hombres Calientes are wandering rhythmatists of the highest order. With the kind of luck created by players with the last name Marsalis, “Vol. 2″ might one day be treasured as a prime example of the increasing, creatively stimulating cross-fertilization of jazz, and the way its earthy roots recombined with various bits of post-bop, blues and funk as the century ran down.

The experience was a lot like listening to “This Time,” Los Lobos’ 10th record, a return to the rockier roots of a band born 26 years ago on the Chicano party circuit in East Los Angeles. Unlike several recent side projects, including albums by Hidalgo’s experimental Latin Playboys, “This Time” represents a thrilling return to feel-good bar-band glory

“‘This Time’ reminds me more of the records pre-’Kiko,’ more like ‘How Will the Wolf Survive?’” says saxophonist-keyboardist Steve Berlin, talking over the phone from a studio in Austin, Texas. “The songs are, I won’t say, straighter. But we employed more pop devices. We didn’t have our berets and goatees on so much.”

Like the rest of the band, Berlin took his own side-project detour, winning a Grammy for producing the debut by Los Super Seven, a Tejano/Texas-country project featuring a cast of music veterans including Rosas, Hidalgo, Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender, Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Flaco Jimenez and Ruben Ramos. Berlin believes that it’s that side-project experience that allowed Los Lobos to put down some more outri work and return to their roots. “It didn’t have to be quite so experimental for it to work,” he says. “It doesn’t sound like ‘N Sync or anything. It’s not like we took a giant leap. It’s just really straightforward in a way that we haven’t necessarily been recently. It’s just there.”

The title cut, one of eight songs co-written by Hidalgo and drummer Louie Perez, teases with background growls and scratches, a distant backbeat and a melodic bass line. It evolves into a snaking R&B groove with Hidalgo singing words of regret over the top of the mix: “Why do the days go by so fast/If only time was built to last/If it could learn to take it slow/Then maybe time at last would know.” “Viking” is all heavy guitars, with wordless chain-gang vocals contrasting against the hard, grinding metal. And “High Places” thrives on a ripping blues-rock riff and self-mocking lyrics about stardom.

That stardom has been fleeting for Los Lobos. The band is adored by critics and followed tenaciously by fans, but they don’t receive a lot of airplay these days. They were, however, a hot commercial commodity for a season. A dozen years ago, the quintet contributed a version of “La Bamba” to the soundtrack of the Ritchie Valens biopic of the same name. The single and the album rocketed to the top of the charts in 25 or so countries. The band became a household name and, predictably, longtime fans accused the group of selling out.

To some extent, the overnight success was more than a decade in the making. At the very beginning, Los Lobos was a group of Mexican-Americans mixing folk tunes, Chicano R&B and blistering rock ‘n’ roll into one savory tamale. Not everyone understood the musical miscegenation: The restaurant owners and music promoters who were willing to have them play never really knew what to make of the band. To lay it all out, Rosas titled the group’s 1978 debut “Los Lobos Del Este Los Angeles (Just Another Band From East L.A.).”

The title of that EP, all these years later, remains a lie spiked with the truth. Los Lobos are really not just another band. They’re something more: dedicated lifers, chronic experimenters, beatified live players. They’ve gloriously survived changing tastes and musical fads with their lineup intact (Berlin joined in 1984), and their fan base keeps expanding while other L.A. outfits of the period have disintegrated or morphed beyond recognition.

The group, to its credit, has continued to synthesize the multicultural sounds of the old neighborhood into a potent antidote to generic pop. “This Time,” for instance, features traditional rhythms played by guest percussionist Alex Acuna on songs like “Corazon” and “Cumbia Raza.” And the band infuses the swampy “Some Say Some Do” with a social conscience. Prefab bubble gum and anglicized Latin pop may come and go, but Los Lobos keep howling.

“It just happened that way,” Berlin says of the band’s durability. “To a certain extent, it has to do with the fact that we’ve tried not to stand in one place very long. We’ve tried to change and grow and make interesting records all down the line. We’ve been extremely lucky that we’ve had an audience that’s followed us down all these weird little paths we’ve taken.

“I always said that we’re easily bored. Like a bunch of third-graders, basically, our attention wanders. It’s hopeless. More than anything, to keep ourselves from drifting off we have to constantly search for new stuff or wacky stuff. I think it’s served us well.”

Haden, the old-school bebopper, recovering avant-gardist and occasional guest on pop projects (Beck, Rickie Lee Jones), makes a real masterstroke this time out. He matches his accomplished West Coast quartet with handpicked tunes from Hollywood, Broadway and ancient pop charts; a 30-piece string orchestra, and emotive singing by Shirley Horn and Bill Henderson, the latter best known for his acting work.

The results are dazzling, and only occasionally melodramatic. Horn sets the tone with a haunting, insistently downbeat take on Leonard Bernstein’s “Lonely Town,” all breathy vocals enveloped in lush strings and Ernie Watts’ saucy tenor saxophone declarations. She similarly indulges in a luxurious sense of time and space on the Jerome Kern gems “In Love in Vain” and “The Folks Who Live on the Hill,” and on Cy Coleman’s “I’m Gonna Laugh You Right out of My Life.” Henderson’s idiosyncratic phrasing lends charm to his subdued readings of “Why Did I Choose You” — featuring a wonderfully melodic solo turn from Haden — as well as “Ruth’s Waltz,” Jimmy Van Heusen’s “You My Love” and “Easy on the Heart.”

The singers exit for two classical pieces artfully arranged by the band’s pianist, Alan Broadbent, for quartet and strings — Rachmaninoff’s “Opus 16, No. 3 in B Minor” and Ravel’s “Prelude en la Mineur.” Then, on the last track of the disc, Haden opens his mouth to sing an old tune called “Wayfaring Stranger.” It’s the first recorded vocal of a man who began his performing career at 2 years old, singing and yodeling in a family country and gospel band that made it all the way to the Grand Ole Opry. Haden’s high tenor is lovely and plaintive on this tale of a prodigal son’s wistful longing for a heavenly home, and it makes for his most evocative piece of music since “Beyond the Missouri Sky,” his 1996 collaboration with Pat Metheny. Haden, his voice sometimes trembling on words once sung by his
mother, offers a series of pastoral images that are downright cinematic. Call it heartland noir.

“Stir It Up” boasts a freaky concept that invigorates Marley’s songs. On the record, two separate rhythm sections — the five-piece Gumption, from Jamaica, and a jazz trio anchored by drummer Troy Davis — pass segments of each song to one another, back and forth within the same piece. The concept allows Alexander to open up the songs and tweak their older arrangements. On “Jammin’,” for instance, he playfully taps out the melody in a jazzy opening section before hitching to the riddim players. Later in the tune, he shuttles back for some hard-driving swing.

Alexander knows that he’s on to something and he’s not afraid to latch on to it, employing the two-band technique on “Is This Love?” and “No Woman No Cry.” Alexander’s two worlds collide most impressively on “I Shot the Sheriff,” which is laced with his imaginative extended piano improvisation and trombonist Steve Turre’s earthy conch-shell utterances.

Alexander amplifies the riskiness of the entire affair with a “bonus” remix of “Could You Be Loved,” featuring renowned reggae producer/drummer Sly Dunbar. It’s odd for any mainstream player to attempt a set of reggae covers, and it’s almost unheard of for a serious jazz musicians to make dance remixes. Alexander, however, makes it work. The track, after a tentative start, settles into a deep-throb groove that stops shy of six minutes, still jamming so fluently that it feels like it ought to go on forever. Give it to an adventurous dance-club DJ, and maybe it will.