16 September 2009
City Life
Mike Butler


The Ensemble of the Year (2008 Parliamentary Jazz Awards) have a new line-up, but the ethos is the same - premier jazz with no discernible ego.

So little ego indeed, that Out ‘n' In - a tribute to multi-reeds modernist Eric Dolphy - resembles spiritualist jazz, and could be a posthumous contribution by Dolphy channeled by the London quartet.

Nine originals (two are covers) credibly inhabit the same sound world, and Nathaniel Facey has Dolphy's crabby tone on alto sax off to a tee, just as guest Julian Siegel convincingly mimics the distinctive timbre of Dolphy's bass clarinet.

The music is jittery, lop-sided bop, on its way to full abstraction.

Vibes-player Lewis Wright is more low-key and intimate than Bobby Hutcherson on Out To Lunch (the obvious role model).

Shaney Forbes' elastic sense of time is a marvel: his fragmented skittering micro-beats really gell with the nimble, lucid lines of bassist Tom Farmer. Yet the dominant mood is eerie and introspective, as if it really was dictated from the other side.

The group's own identity remains elusive on what sounds like a great, lost album by Eric Dolphy.