The release of Fred Thomas, Benoît Delbecq and Ewan Bleach's sparkling Wagner radical trad tribute Dick Wag, as previously mentioned in these pages, kicks off with a single of 'Pilgrim's Chorus' on 19 October, the date of the original premiere in Dresden of Tannhäuser in 1845. The album itself is to be released on 16 November. It isn't the first Wagner jazz tribute.

Readers with long but not necessarily ancient memories will recall 2013's Dieter Ilg album Parsifal and Eric Schaefer's Who Is Afraid of Richard W.? Ilg performed his Parsifal with his trio in a spirit of respect and gentleness corresponding to an orthodox modern jazz piano style with some familiar Beethoven tucked in at the end. Schaefer’s album was more a “revisiting” of the material, the superb pristine trumpet and flugel tone and interpretative subtlety of Tom Arthurs a feature. Volker Meitz’s steamy organ intro to ‘Lohengrin’ was an inventive touch.

All very well but this new Waggish release is more satisfying than either. Dick Wag begins with a chunky bass walk on 'The Night Watchman's Song' Delbecq coming in quite deliciously before the melody all bluesified enters on sax from Ewan Bleach. It's kind of trad. But it's also kind of avant. You get these ghostly echoes in Thomas' arrangements of familiar Wagner along the way then put into a blender, Delbecq changing all the harmonic reference points in his solos in a contrary juxtaposition to Bleach, an erstwhile Basin Street Brawler, sounding like Coleman Hawkins on the 'Wedding Death March'. Actually Bleach plays brilliantly quite throughout and check him out especially wagging the dog as it were on one of the choice solos of the whole album on 'Tristan's Pain'. Out on Babel.