An EP from newcomer guitarist Matthew Rotker-Lynn. He's 26, hails from Milwaukee and lives in New York. Here he delivers a studio date made at Brooklyn studio Big Orange Sheep with bassist Alex Claffy, drummer Jimmy Macbride and featuring pianist Aaron Goldberg on a few tracks - Goldberg himself is on the latest Yes Trio album Spring Sings just out. ''I first saw Aaron play,'' says Rotker-Lynn, ''at the Newport Jazz Festival with Kurt Rosenwinkel when I was 16''. Solid, lightly swinging, with an emphasis on pristine melodicism and efficient processing of chord changes and tempi, the treatment of Duke Pearson Honeybuns nonet piece 'You Know I Care' - in the last 20 years covered by among others Wayne Escoffery and Sullivan Fortner - finds the essence of Rotker-Lynn most and is our first port of call.
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