ALEX HUTTON — Legentis (review)

ALEX HUTTON — Legentis album cover Album · 2012 · Nu Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
snobb
This album became a beautiful soundtrack for me one summer evening - the day was cloudy and cold, but at the end, the northern summer showed its almost ruby-red dawn shine. This album's first sounds come from the woody Jamo acoustic system (I adore its soft velvet sound) bringing me somewhere to a parallel world. Melancholic acoustic piano in combination with wordless, almost operatic, vocals from Heidi Vogel sound like an old Italian movie soundtrack. But, right away the sweet melody is exploded with muscular groove...

Ten years ago Esbjörn Svensson Trio changed the European jazz scene with their pop-rock-jazz songs, full of Nordic crystal cool air, folksy roots and catchy tunes. Their music influenced the artists that are on the front pages (Michael Wollny, Phronesis, etc)nowadays. But, with all my love for the EST compositions, one thing I always missed there was the groove. I grew up in Nordic culture and cool melancholy (someone probably calls it "emotionless")isn't strange or a rare thing here, but even "frozen people" like groove in their music!

A big part of "Legentis" music is obviously influenced by Nordic nu jazz, but fortunately it doesn't sound like one more clone at all. Added English folk or Canterbury elements act as fresh blood in the nu jazz formula, and as if that would not be enough - Latin jazz and vocals!

For sure this music has its own face - mixing different influences in intelligent, warm and groovy music which could probably be called English nu jazz. Great compositions and a muscular rhythm section are both important components as well.

Alex's third (and debut on F-IRE) album is recorded with his new (international) trio - Russian classically trained acoustic bassist Yuri Goloubev and Israeli drummer Asaf Sirkis (I was able to hear Asaf playing live with his own explosive rock-influenced trio at last year's Vilnius Jazz fest). Easily the best new release from Albion I have listened to this year.

Recommended for every EST and nu jazz fan, in fact, you don't even need to be a jazz lover to be caught by this music.
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