The best work we have heard yet from popular UK scene Ukrainian harpist Alina Bzhezhinska and 1990s English saxophone legend Tony Kofi whose background includes Nu Troop, a hard bop band put together by Gary Crosby whom we first heard the Nottingham ace in playing at the Regent Palace Hotel in the Soho of the 1990s. Tony with Sharp Little Bones recently, and here, the everyman saxist, whose instrumentalism is matched by Bzhezhinska, has delivered some of his best work in years. The duo go beyond celestial vamp and groove - you get the latter on a terrific new Brandee Younger track with Lizz Wright that we have been playing a lot over the last few months, 'Your Love' you could think of as the yin to the Altera Vita yang. Kofi is also on a new Billy Strayhorn themed album soon with Ian Shaw - An Adventurous Dream. While fairly brief, Altera Vita (many of the titles are latin words) amounting to only six, fairly swiftly digestible tracks, so really in this day and age more a mini album, that reduced length doesn't matter. There's an excellent illustration in the cover art to enhance the offering and sound quality is better than a lot of current releases sonically. With war in Ukraine and Gaza still raging art has never been so important to not only lift the spirits but show just what enlightenment is possible through spritualized, deeply serious, often quite moving, work as here that actually does something humane rather than snuff out life - by warring - that is all so precious. All we are saying is give peace a chance.
Tags: reviews