Jonathan Silk, Fragment (Stoney Lane)

CLACKMANNANSHIRE-born drummer Jonathan Silk won the Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year title in 2014, by which time he was already making his presence felt on the jazz scene in Birmingham where he graduated from the conservatoire three years earlier.

Fragment is his second album and it showcases his talents not just as a drummer but as a composer and orchestrator. Scored for a nineteen-piece big band supplemented by a thirteen-strong string section, it’s ambitious in scale and adventurous in its approach, drawing together brassy power, a crisp, dynamic rhythm section and the strings’ gracefulness and colour with skill, sensitivity, urgency, and descriptiveness.

Silk studied with top American composer-arrangers Vince Mendoza and Maria Schneider and while their influence is audible there are Scottish tones too, notably on Buchaille, and a loose-limbed African quality to Barefeet. At nearly eleven minutes, Fool’s Paradise is quite the epic, swirling keyboards, riffing guitar and whipcrack drums leading to an intimate horn and piano duet before the full ensemble gathers momentum. Impressive stuff.

Rob Adams