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Ideal for Record Store Day, Cardiff jazz indie Edition, partnering with London vinyl specialists Gearbox, has released a limited heavyweight vinyl edition of Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, and London Vocal Project’s Mirrors, a big highlight of the springtime jazz releases so far this year.

With all music by Kenny Wheeler, the poetry of Stevie Smith (1902-1971) lies at its heart, and Wheeler’s music has meshed with it perfectly. But it’s not just Smith whose work forms the text for the vocals element, here interpreted by the  25-strong LVP split into sopranos, altos, tenors and basses, with Wheeler joining on flugelhorn, Winstone the featured solo singer, pianist Nikki Iles, Polar Bear’s Mark Lockheart on saxophones, bassist Steve Watts, and drummer James Maddren. Besides settings of Smith’s work, the highlight of which for me is the delightful ‘Black March’ (‘I have a friend/At the end/Of the world’), there are settings of Lewis Carroll, and briefly WB Yeats.

Delight is a word that constantly springs to mind, an echo of ‘I sing this song for your delight’ on ‘Humpty Dumpty’ at the beginning. The singing is lovely throughout, ethereal, and endowed with a life force all of its own. Somehow everything manages to remain understated yet has impact, the unique charm of the album.

www.recordstoreday.co.uk/participating-stores