Kenny Wheeler - Other People

Forty years ago Kenny Wheeler wrote Windmill Tilter, inspired by Don Quixote. Now 78, the Anglo-Canadian trumpeter continues to be the embodiment of a quixotic strain of jazz, brimming with the lyricism of hope and layered with the pensive melancholy of reality.

Rather remarkably, this album contains Wheeler's first use of strings. His own trumpet and flugelhorn are joined by the Hugo Wolf Quartet and the glorious piano playing of John Taylor.

The relationships are more complex and varied than just having the strings create settings for the two improvisers, however. The three components slide in and out of the impressionistic foregrounds and two superb pieces are for the quartet alone. Wheeler's string writing carries the same blend of dignity and quiet anguish to be found in his playing, as ever lightened by an instinct for rhythmic buoyancy.

John Shand  - Sydney Morning Herald