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Andrew McCormack

Telescope

DUNECD013

As Kevin Le Gendre's liner notes point out, Andrew McCormack is a refreshingly open-eared pianist as likely to find his inspiration in Broadway balladry as in bebop, or in soul jazz and swing, and this intensely committed album sees him operating in all these areas, as well as in a pleasantly funky New Orleans-influenced groove (bassist Tom Herbert's 'Better than People').

As anyone who's heard his powerful performances with Alan Skidmore or the various Tomorrow's Warriors permutations will already know, McCormack is a gifted pianist, capable of producing both dazzling, climactic runs and spiky, eccentric, almost Monk-like contributions; as a composer, too, he casts his stylistic net wide, to embrace everything from stop-start themes with hurtling releases, through insistent but fluid solo pieces and gently propulsive latin-tinged material to neat, tricksy tunes that enable his rhythm section (the aforementioned Herbert and fierce but subtle drummer Tom Skinner) to show their considerable class.

McCormack himself is a strong believer, too, in both the artistic calibre of the London jazz scene ('There's a real sense of adventure, of possibility, of creativity, a belief that you really can do anything') and the viability of the contemporary piano-trio format ('Brad Mehldau, EST and the Bad Plus have reinvigorated [it] and shown us new possibilities; it's time for us here to do something with that format'), and such positive creative energy and optimism permeates the music on what is an extremely promising debut album.