Kenny Wheeler
Songs For Quintet
(ECM)
Self-effacing to the end, Kenny Wheeler recorded this inauspiciously titled album in December 2013. It was to be the last time the Canadian-born trumpeter, a quietly major presence on the UK and world jazz scenes for some 60 years, would play with other musicians and the players on this session - Stan Sulzmann (tenor saxophone), John Parricelli (guitar), Chris Laurence (bass) and Martin France (drums) are all colleagues of long standing. There's palpable respect for Wheeler in the way they bring his compositions off the page and although Wheeler himself was losing strength through illness and showing signs of vulnerability in his flugelhorn playing, this only adds to the humanity and warmth of feeling in these stylistically varied but essentially Wheeler tunes. While the dense electric guitar backdrop of 1076 shows Wheeler still looking for new ways to express himself in his eighties, the poetic grace of The Long Waiting, the tangoing Sly Eyes and the soul-jazz flavoured Old Time all epitomise the album's inherent charm.
Rob Adams
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