New Focus

(Whirlwind)

As the audiences who have been responding ecstatically at their concerts already know, there's something of the accidental masterpiece about Konrad Wiszniewski and Euan Stevenson's New Focus. They were originally asked to recreate Stan Getz's 1961 saxophone and strings album Focus, found the arrangements beyond their smaller resources, and have now not just produced this superb recording but also merged jazz quartet, string quartet and concert harp into a unit that plays expertly tempered music in its own style. It's gorgeous and easily accessible, from the shimmering, undulating strings on Wiszniewski's opening Nicola's Piece through El Paraiso's deeply moreish pizzicato blues and on, never wavering in quality, to the exuberant, dancing Parson's Green. Stevenson confirms himself as a composer and arranger of great style, as well as a pianist with an elegant, coolly considered improviser's touch, and while Wiszniewski's saxophone talents have been conspicuous for some time, his playing here, always inventive, always soulfully communicative, puts him firmly in the international class.