For free-jazz pianists, following Cecil Taylor and Keith Tippett must be like trying to paint Mont Saint-Victoire after Cézanne.
Matthew Bourne, in a trio with Dave Kane and Stephen Davis, sounds best when there's still an identifiable jazz context to his playing or when the tune itself carries weight, as in a version of "Round Midnight" – though Monk didn't do psychodrama, as Bourne does here. Oddly, pieces by Annette Peacock, Carla Bley and John Surman are rather thrown away, while originals such as Davis's "Melt" and "De Selby's Earth" have both point and swing.
Pick of the Album: 'Melt': a gently swinging anti-ballad
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