Spotify link added on 9 March.

What's ahead on the UK scene for early 2023? One priority listen is certainly Red Kite to be released in January the work of pianist and composer Jamil Sheriff's Five Gold Rings band.

Sheriff is head of the school of music and education at Leeds Conservative and his band here have lots of Conservatoire connections - with principal lecturer Richard Iles alternating trumpet and flugel; Jim Corry, also a principal lecturer at Leeds, on alto saxophone; Leeds graduate and guest lecturer Sam Quintana on double bass; and Caroline Boaden - a Leeds senior lecturer - on drums.

Sheriff began his recording career 20 years ago and he is also reissuing five albums from his back catalogue including his debut Daydreams. There are some lovely touches from Iles who proves very Kenny Wheeler-like on 'Going To Church' and elsewhere as Sheriff deftly accompanies.

The tunes are strong - there's a vein of melancholia in some and you get a bittersweet feeling of a lost time mostly when the horns pair up together as on 'Friends Since the 80s' and later on the title track. Sheriff's solo spot on 'Spiralling into Control' changes the mood before a gloriously plengent theme taken up by Iles and then Corry. On the swinging 'Love Someone' you get a more retro sense - the bounce and swing of Johnny Dankworth hovers into view even a little here - and again the spirit of Kenny Wheeler seems a guiding light over so much of this very fine record.

l-r: Jim Corry, Sam Quintana, Jamil Sheriff, Caroline Boaden, Richard Iles photo: press

Out on 19 January