As retro as it comes, the archetypal default classic jazz club sound (just walk into Ronnie Scott’s after 11pm most nights), straightahead jazz grounded in bebop and the later modified hard bop of Art Blakey looks as if it’s back in the limelight in the New Year courtesy of a brace of albums respecting the idiom.
Alex Garnett is first out of the gate in late-January with his new band Bunch of 5’s Andromeda (Whirlwind ***1/2) featuring the twin-tenor saxophone attack of Garnett and Tim Armacost fronting a starry outfit of well known faces. Garnett, most often heard in Ronnie’s where he regularly hosts the Late Late Show has found inspiration in Benny Golson and that well known jazzer the bumbling Shakespearian character Dogberry among the sometimes off-the-wall gallimaufry of influences.
Not to be outdone but sticking more to the orthodox Blakey plot another saxophonist, altoist Matt Wates’ long running sextet returns in early February with Yemanja (Audio-B, ***) a rollicking affair driven hard by Leon Greening’s vaulting pianism, an elaborate virtuosic take on Paganini’s ‘Caprice Number 5’ the unlikely centrepiece. SG