– THE CHARM OFFENSIVE –

Acclaimed trumpeter Matthew Halsall wants you to know that he’s a massive fan of flautist and saxophonist Chip Wickham.

The latter has been supporting Halsall and his celestial jazz orchestra live for some time now and while such mutual back-slapping may have been somewhat, influenced by the fact that the two share a Manchester base, it is, nonetheless, praise indeed from the head of Gondwana Records.

After all, Halsall – as we know – is an excellent spotter of talent.

And it’s perhaps even more understandable when you listen to Wickham’s latest record Blue to Red, which bears all the hallmarks of a Halsall masterpiece.

There’s the world flavours of the opener / title track, the electronics of Interstellar, the ambient atmospherics of The Cosmos and, of course, the straight-up, strong-safety of the ol’ trad jazz of Route One. There’s even a harp in there for good measure.

My personal highlight on this piece comes just after the second harp solo at 3:30 where Simon ‘Sneaky’ Houghton takes his bass for walk and, to paraphrase Lenny Di Caprio in Quentin Tarantino’s film Django Unchained, Wickham went from having my curiosity to very much having my attention.

If you like this try, what else, but my review of Distant Land by Matthew Halsall

Blue to Red is out now on Lovemonk.

HEAR MORE HERE

DERRICK HODGE: COLOR OF NOIZE
LIV.E: LESSONS FROM MY MISTAKES… BUT I LOST YOUR NUMBER
OTIS SANDSJÖ: TREMENDOCE
KEPLER IS FREE: CLUSTER 3

CEASE-FIRE

You can find all of the tracks reviewed above in the 45 Revolutions per Minute playlist below or click to access the Future Jazz Playlist on Spotify itself.

If you like what you hear (or even if you don’t), please engage in dialogue with me @45rpm_Reviews on Twitter. And, if you’d like to receive updates weekly, please subscribe to the email list to get these recommendations sent to your inbox weekly.

Until next time, love and noise.

– SV –