Putting a recently purchased CD of Whatever and Ever Amen into my car CD player and hearing the opening barrelhouse piano of “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces” immediately transported me back to high school. I learned how to play piano to Ben Folds’ music and especially his work with the trio Ben Folds Five. Their second album (also their commercial breakthrough) is a tone-jumping collection of and acrobatic musicianship. The bouncing vocalizations in “Fair,” the plaintive and still affecting “Brick,” and the melodica-tinged “Smoke” all sit nervously comfortable amongst the brash butt-rock cabaret of “Song for the Dumped” and the raucous swing of “Steven’s Last Night In Town.” Like much of Folds’ output, Whatever requires the listener to put aside the preconceived notion that “humor doesn’t belong in music” in favor of some of the wittiest and powerful music of the past few decades.