Andy Sheppard Quartet
Surrounded By Sea
(ECM)
Saxophonist Andy Sheppard's third album for ECM as a leader expands on his previous recording with Trio Libero, which delighted Aberdeen Jazz Festival audiences a year or two back with its unhurried, melodic spontaneity and subtle rhythmical bounce. Here, Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset adds his quiet orchestrations to Sheppard's beautifully chiselled soprano and tenor lines, Michel Benita's bass and Sebastian Rochford's minimally grooving drums to create music that's mostly gentle, hauntingly atmospheric and often suggestive of a film soundtrack. Indeed, Sheppard's adoption of Aoidh, Na Dean Cadal Idir, a traditional Gaelic song from Uist learned from Julie Fowlis that recurs through the album, wouldn't have sounded out of place on the Julie Christie version of Far From The Madding Crowd or in Sheppard's fellow West Countryman, John Surman's Thomas Hardy dedications. I See Your Eyes Before Me noises things up a notch without disturbing an air of finely honed, poetic understatement that's particularly well highlighted on Sheppard's reading of Elvis Costello's I Want To Vanish.
Rob Adams
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