Noah Haidu, Buster Williams, Billy Hart: Duchess ****

What a version. There's so much emotional honesty and a poised sense of delivery here. Billy Hart piece 'Duchess' that you might know from Oshumare (Gramavision, 1985) or All Our Reasons (ECM, 2012) also beautifully covered by George Colligan with …

Published: 12 Apr 2021. Updated: 3 years.

What a version. There's so much emotional honesty and a poised sense of delivery here. Billy Hart piece 'Duchess' that you might know from Oshumare (Gramavision, 1985) or All Our Reasons (ECM, 2012) also beautifully covered by George Colligan with Hart and Drew Gress on 1998 SteepleChase release Stomping Ground is one of a few tracks streaming ahead of May release Slowly: Song for Keith Jarrett. Up there with the best classic jazz piano trio sounds around at the moment (earlier in the year only the latest Bill Cunliffe comes close in terms of elegance). Pianist Haidu is with two legends from Mwandishi, Buster Williams on double bass and Hart himself on drums. Why so good? Perhaps it's the dreamy atmosphere or the way the piece unfolds in surprising ways. The art of improvisation and the art of the trio dovetail so naturally. To be issued by Sunnyside. Buster Williams, top left, Noah Haidu, Billy Hart. Photo: Facebook

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Evan Parker Quartet, All Knavery and Collusion *****

The deeper you travel into the light and to the heart of jazz the more you will encounter Evan Parker and that need to journey further to remain in that dimension is crucial. It took me many years to really get what Parker does beyond the basics …

Published: 12 Apr 2021. Updated: 3 years.

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The deeper you travel into the light and to the heart of jazz the more you will encounter Evan Parker and that need to journey further to remain in that dimension is crucial.

It took me many years to really get what Parker does beyond the basics of appreciating his astounding technical command of the saxophone and progressing to survey his own ''linguistic'' innovations achieved through circular breathing and a microscopic sense of cellular detail. That process started in a live context by hearing Parker in duo with Stan Tracey in Gateshead in 2005.

Here with an outrageously simpatico band Parker is with John Edwards and the double bassist's fellow Mulatu bandmate pianist Alexander Hawkins plus drummer Paul Lytton recording in Kent the day after a Vortex gig in east London.

Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year (1772) is one of a number of literary inspirations in the titling. Serene, contemplative, outstanding: All Knavery & Collusion is aptly a desert island disc. SG Out on Cadillac on Friday