Manu Katche, Tomsaz Stanko & Jan Garbarek - Neighbourhood

BBC Music Magazine, Jazz ChoiceJazz FM, Album of the month

Manu Katch�, who leads this relaxed supersession featuring trumpeter Tomasz Stanko and saxophonist Jan Garbarek, is the kind of drummer who can't not groove. On Neighbourhood he adds propulsion to the kind of chamber jazz that too often floats in a musical soup of formless percussion. He makes a beautiful sound on his kit, too, and meshes nicely with pianist Marcin Wasilewski and double bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz on the opening track. � Neighbourhood is a thoughtful, feelgood jazz album that harks back to the traditions of modern jazz while remaining contemporary � thanks to Katch�'s inventive drumming. - John L Walters, The Guardian

Katch�'s writing is a beguiling blend of understatement and emphasis, his harmonic sensibilities simultaneously European, African and African-American. In other words it's easy to imagine anybody from Karin Krog to Bobby McFerrin or Omar Pene singing these very lyrical pieces...They have a glow that doesn't quite heat up as some American jazz does. In other words Katch�, whose performance on the kit has all of the rhythmic and textural finesse one expects of him, has fashioned a sound that epitomizes the global, intercontinental, access-all-areas reality of contemporary jazz. - Kevin Le Gendre, Echoes

Personnel: Jan Garbarek (saxophones), Tomasz Stanko (trumpet), Marcin Wasilewski (piano), Slawomir Kurkiewicz (double bass), Manu Katch� (drums, percussion)