New York's oddly-named Frogg Cafe will have you scratching your head - partly because you're wondering what the heck a "frog cafe" is, and partly because of their quirky, somewhat cerebral music. The band is progressive in the truest sense of the word - but don't be surprised if they find a limited audience in the prog fanbase, and enjoy a stronger reception in the jazz community.

The Safenzee Diaries is a collation of their better live performances played at venues like Baltimore's Orion Studios, the New Jersay Proghouse, Frogg Cafe's recent NEARfest appearance, and several others. The performances are close to studio quality, and unusual for a live compilation, the production is very consistent throughout the double-CD.

Beside straddling the the progressive and jazz genres, the band's deliberate dissonance is its most obvious characteristic - and when you first hear the discord you might be inclined to think of King Crimson. But it's more quirky than that, approaching dissonance for the sake of dissonance, and therein lies the challenge. But meet that challenge and the rewards will be worth your time. The music alternates between ranging jam sessions and drum-tight pieces that feature wonderful interplay between instruments. Listen for the complex interactions in "Space Dust", which features wonderfully coordinated guitar, bass and keyboard dialogs. This is a high energy sound - there's tons of activity, but you might wish they'd settle into a melody occasionally and let the music go somewhere.

The upbeat bass positively drives most songs and adds to that jazzy tone, and a violin is a constant feature - sometimes scratching its way through the music in a strident tone and a jarring dissonance that demands your attention, sometimes contributing a well-grounded accompaniment, and it dominates several sections - like "Gagutz", a jam-rock piece that takes on an Afro-centric rhythm that propels the hyperactive, lead lines of the violin and the flugelhorn. And speaking of brass - Nick Lieto's flugelhorn takes a central role in many pieces. It's a trumpet-like instrument originally made famous by South African jazz master Hugh Masekela, but most commonly known for the original 30-second score played in final Jeopardy!

Besides the violin and the horn, the mostly old-fashioned instruments give it a mostly old-fashioned atmosphere. Most of the vocals are delivered in a tentative upper-mid range, and recall several Gentle Giant songs - memorable, quirky melodies with loose pitch control. But the singing is rare and The Safenzee Diaries is - to all intents and purposes - an instrumental record. "Creatures", well known as the title track of a previous album, is somewhat different, though, starting with strong bluesy vocals and morphing into a wonderful guitar-led 11-minute instrumental jam session.

Very unconventional - and The Safenzee Diaries is an excellent point of departure for newcomers to Frogg Cafe. And we're still trying to decide if a Frogg Cafe is a place where frogs eat, or where people snack on frogs legs.

Welcome to The Safenzee Diaries — a two-CD collection of 14 Frogg Café songs like you've never heard them before. Hell, three of them are even brand new tunes. While the band culls its influences from probably hundreds of odd sources, "progressive rock," "jazz fusion" and "jam band" are the easiest terms to describe this captivating amalgam of sounds. But unlike Frogg Café's three studio releases, The Safenzee Diaries captures the band in full flights of free-form fancy. Recorded at a handful of East Coast venues between 2004 and 2006, these songs burst with creative wordplay ("Leave of Absinthe" still cracks me up each time I read that title) and snazzy violin, trumpet and trombone solos. And surprisingly for a band that places so much emphasis on musicality, Frogg Café excels in the vocal department, with multiple singers. In many ways, this band reminds me of Umphrey's McGee — a so-called jam band that has greatly broadened its musical base in a very short time. So why do groups like Umphrey's McGee (deserving as that band is) receive all the attention while Frogg Café is relegated to cult status?

Before I go and impulsively assign The Safenzee Diaries five stars after listening once again to the album's most outstanding cut, the 14-minute "Abyss of Dissension," I must caution that there are plenty of eclectic twists here that may not appeal to all listeners — even adventurous ones. For example, dissonant violins and atonal arrangements are things you'd least expect to hear in a song called "Fat Guys in Shorts." Add the goofy spoken-word passages in "Tagliarini" that evoke a stoned Elvis, and you have the two most difficult songs to follow in a 136-minute set that otherwise has the addictive qualities of a sweet drug.