Joost Buis: Astronotes

The approach centres around the written and the improvised, hardly an innovative notion. But it is in the development that the capture lies. Buis and his band play quite convincingly, not only when they extend ideas from the written page, but also when they innovate at the instant. There is a sense of fun imparted to several of the tunes, a zest and vitality that grabs right away. The horns romp as they fire “Spaghetti Canon” and drop a thick curtain for Jan Willem van der Ham to cavort on the alto saxophone. In the background Felicity Provan fires fusillades on the cornet, the whole combining for a dizzy spell.

On the other end of the scale comes “The Comet's Point of View.” Composition opens the door to a spontaneous jigsaw of sound, the pieces pulled out of the imagination, pulse and meter transmuted and locked into space. The Ellington-Strayhorn tune “Zweet Zurzday” is deftly orchestrated. Paul Pallesen adds to the inherent beauty, his guitar a rhapsodic voice. And in a trajectory from the rest comes one of the juiciest pieces, a growling, dirty blues called “Nantones.” Slurp!

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