Kairos 4tet - 'Statement of Intent’

Edition Records – EDN 1026 Release date April 2011

Adam Waldmann: saxophones;
Ivo Neame: piano;
Jasper Høiby: double bass;
Jon Scott: drums;
Emilia Mårtensson: vocals on Maybe Next Year and The Calling.

Phronesis with added saxophone you might guess, but you would only be half right in that Høiby and Neame are two thirds in fact of Phronesis, while Jon Scott hails from schools such as Alec Dankworth, Nikki Iles, Martin Speake and Byron Wallen. Leader Adam Waldmann is probably known to you via Polar Bear.

Kairos 4tet is a classical, acoustic, jazz quartet with undertones of folk, funk and world customs, warmly delivering refined melodies wrapped around intricately rhythmical inflections and woven through with elegant, foundation propositions. There is lots of legroom in the music and this allows each member to explore, beyond the written words of an air into the spaces between those words and into the less conventional moments of improvisation.

Adam’s lavish and resonant tenor is agreeably balanced against his phrasing, meticulous timing and tonal nuance. Ivo Neame plays piano as though it were an orchestra, developing the shape of a tune time and again, with little, apparent expenditure of endeavour. All of this is interwoven against a backdrop of astonishingly vibrant elasticity from the big, big bass of Jasper Høiby and drummer Jon Scott’s turbo rhythms.

Finally, from one who is not enamoured of songs in jazz, Emilia Mårtensson’s enthralling singing is just that and it is most welcome. Like the rest of the music herein, it is rational and serene and as with the rest of the group, there are no theatricals.

I thoroughly recommend this album to anyone who likes their jazz to be contemporary.

Reviewed by

ken cheetham
Mar. 2011