The next record from The Cookers will be on Gearbox this autumn

'Somalia' from Look Out! new from hard bop supergroup The Cookers, drawn from the release, this time on London label Gearbox, is streaming. The David Weiss-produced affair has Weiss on trumpet with Billy Harper on tenor saxophone, Eddie Henderson …

Published: 22 Jul 2021. Updated: 2 years.

'Somalia' from Look Out! new from hard bop supergroup The Cookers, drawn from the release, this time on London label Gearbox, is streaming. The David Weiss-produced affair has Weiss on trumpet with Billy Harper on tenor saxophone, Eddie Henderson (who made jazz history with Herbie Hancock on Mwandishi, Crossings and Sextant) trumpet, Donald Harrison alto sax, George Cables on piano, Forest Flower legend Cecil McBee, on double bass, and Henderson's fellow Mwandishi bandmate and new NEA Jazz Master Billy Hart on drums completing the septet.

'Somalia' is the title track of Harper's Evidence label album dating back to a mid-1990s release on which Henderson also appears. This new version has a different arrangement and is half the duration of the 90s version.

Look Out! was recorded at the Van Gelder studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the most revered jazz recording studio in the world, the tunes are originals by McBee, Harper and Cables. Darrel Sheinman's Gearbox has long since proved itself since its early Little Giant period to have the best recorded sound quality of any current indie-jazz label partly thanks to their taste and peerless mastering engineering. The Cookers take their name from Freddie Hubbard's 1965 Blue Note album The Night of the Cookers and earlier albums have appeared on the Plus Loin, Jazz Legacy, Motéma and Smoke Sessions labels. Look Out! release date is 24 September. The Cookers, top, photo: Gearbox

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Trifecta tracks display a mastery of mood

Trifecta have a couple of tracks going so far ahead of Fragments. Both are completely worth your time but for different reasons. The main thing late-period Miles fans (particularly if you love 'Maze') might want to know is to check what Adam …

Published: 21 Jul 2021. Updated: 2 years.

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Trifecta have a couple of tracks going so far ahead of Fragments. Both are completely worth your time but for different reasons. The main thing late-period Miles fans (particularly if you love 'Maze') might want to know is to check what Adam Holzman does on keys certainly on one of the tracks. Quite a dystopian 1980s sound, dare I use the word prog? Yes. Advisedly. However, the pivoting between jazz-rock and prog rebounds more towards jazz which is refreshing but does not matter too much unless who you are a sub-genre nomenclature obsessive and need to get these things exactly so. I suppose noir is best given how important mood is to the trio's artistry certainly on the absorbing 'Have You Seen What The Neighbours Are Doing?' instrumental.

There is superb feel from drummer Craig Blundell, a player known for his work with Steve Hackett. The bass guitar lines are fat and juicy. Vocals track, the amusingly titled 'Pavlov's Dog Killed Schrodinger's Cat' with deadly serious lyrics note (the world is absurd and all that) is knowing in a wry Becker and Fagen way. Bass guitarist-vocalist-songwriter Nick Beggs also a Hackettian navigates terrain that we certainly need the Trifecta maps to locate. Google maps may draw a blank. Kscope are on to something here, check their link. Let's hope the rest of the tracks are just as good.