Tommy Smith Quartet - The Christmas Concert

Tommy Smith, Scotland's premier jazz saxophonist has made a serious jazz album which takes the basic material of familiar Christmas staples and builds them into much more elaborate harmonic structures. Smith's excellent quartet is a working band rather than an ad hoc gathering, and this is obvious in the tight-knit empathy of their ensemble playing. The rich harmonies and shifting time signatures of the music keep everyone on their toes and make rewarding launching pads for solo improvisation. Slow tunes such as Silent Night or I'll be Home for Christmas provide further evidence of what a lyrical and expressive ballad player the saxophonist now is. And, the players dig deeply into the uptempo material, transforming chestnuts such as We Three Kings into inventive and swinging jazz excursions.Personnel: Tommy Smith (tenor saxophone), Gareth Williams (piano), Orlando le Fleming (bass), Sebastiaan de Krom (drums)