Rob Luft is the UK guitarist to watch. Last year with O'Hig, Scott Flanigan (Belfast's James Pearson) and the great Rod Youngs he showed just how fresh he could be on Monk and Coltrane material.

This year live back pre-pandemic with Byron Wallen, Luft was a joy to listen to smokin' in old Holborn down at the Pizza Express there and on Byron's record Portrait that still to my mind is the best UK jazz release of 2020. And what about Luft's own record for Edition? I'll copy his cover of 'Berlin' once again in case you missed it.

I played it to death back earlier in the year and I'm enjoying it all over again. (Oh turn it up.)

As for Fred Thomas, whose artistry spans classical music and jazz, and is known as a bassist, a drummer and a pianist. His new Wagner themed album for Babel is excellent and I really enjoyed his Monk work with Zac Gvi earlier this decade. Again have a listen:

Singer Elina Duni has been on ECM for quite a while. Back in 2015 I liked Dallëndyshe, a piano trio plus the voice of Duni, the album retaining the same personnel for this highly folkloric approach on an album whose title translates as ‘The Swallow’, the singer’s husband Colin Vallon an engaged presence on opener ‘Fëllënza’ (‘The Partridge’). Songs of Albanian exile (Duni writes in a sleeve note: “exile is forever a wound”), Albanian and Kosovan traditional music arranged by the singer whose voice formed the chief element.

Moving on she and Luft began to work together a few years back with Swiss flugelhornist and erstwhile Michel Benita bandmate Matthieu Michel completing the group.

Like a lot of ECM studio releases these days it was done at la Buissonne in the south of France recorded a month before lockdown. Looking at the track titles the inclusion of the great 1950s song 'I'm A Fool To Want You' stands out a mile, a number that Tierney Sutton did a great version of in the 1990s although expect Duni's to be darker. More info on the record which is to be released in November and full track listings via the distributor's site.