Simon Purcell Red Circle Whirlwind Recordings ****
Beautifully gathered, Julian Siegel and Chris Batchelor’s tenor saxophone and trumpet in the opening noir-ish exchanges set the atmosphere pianist Simon Purcell prodding the band along after the bass and drum-led start Gene Calderazzo’s quick-witted percussive wit jockeying ‘Spirit Level’ along. This album should have come out in June, not sure why it has been delayed, but it’s certainly worth the wait, one of the most accomplished homegrown acoustic jazz releases of the year so far. The head of jazz at Trinity-Laban’s first album for Whirlwind, the best UK indie jazz label for a while now in terms of the quantity and quality of its output, there’s something timeless about the appeal here in much the way that you can listen to an old Wayne Shorter record and it still seems modern and relevant, the collected wisdom of a lost time where the music sums up the pensive mood but celebrates the musical abandon so persuasively. On this studio recording Printmakers bassist Steve Watts has a difficult job containing the wildnesses Purcell’s writing allows for and manages to steer the direction of the music sensitively particularly on a tune such as ‘Minos’ not exactly restraining the horns but going with their flow and the restlessness of the rhythm section. Liane Carroll guests on the sumptuous bonus track ‘Ithaca’ a quality Winstone-esque original of Purcell’s, adding to the other compositions of his on the record, this single non-instrumental featuring lyrics by the singer. It’s a song you’d imagine we’ll be hearing a lot of in the future such is its sheer magnetism.
Red Circle is released on 10 November