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Pago Libre

Stepping Out

Leo Records CD LR 444

A quartet comprising horns (Arkady Shilkloper), violin (Tscho Theissing), keyboards (John Wolf Brennan) and bass (Georg Breinschmid), Pago Libre play a beguiling mixture of classical, improvised and folk music indigenous to the various countries from which their members hail, at times sounding like an art-music band, at others a free-jazz group, and occasionally like an improvising version of Astor Piazzolla's nuevo tango band.

If this makes them sound a little arch and contrived, however, it's misleading: their themes are nimble, neat and brisk, even playful, and this spirit of mutual enjoyment of each other's playing infuses their music, rendering it immediately accessible to admirers of all the above genres.

On this recording, themes range from the joyously scurrying enlivened by tripping piano, to stately, measured tunes, explored by solo excursions and slowly building to rattling climaxes, but whatever they're playing (elegant waltzes or skittish romps) Pago Libre achieve that elusive, apparently oxymoronic goal: serious fun.