ALBUM REVIEW / POP

** 1/2 Various artists “Songs Without Words,” Windham Hill. Lots of easygoing, background pianism here, from a wide array of songwriters. Bob James and Jeff Lorber add some much needed intensity with their jazz-tinged rhythms, but the most fascinating tracks are Brian Wilson’s “This Isn’t Love,” which sounds like a sketch for an unrecorded Beach Boys song; Stephen Sondheim’s lush rendering of “What Can You Lose,” from “Dick Tracy”; and Carole King’s typically bouncy “Blue Morning Alive.”

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).