John Surman: Selected Recordings: rarum

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * *)


For their 35th birthday the German ECM label has - as on other significant anniversaries - raided the cupboard. They've offered 20 of their major names - Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny among them - a chance to select tracks for a compilation.

English saxophonist Surman is singled out here because he is often overlooked, yet has a distinctive, stately style and crisp but human tone. He draws from classical and folk: the opener here is the solo Druid's Circle followed by Number Six with a quartet which owes more to minimalism before skidding into a rapid soprano solo. His mesmerising album Private City (written for the Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet company) gets only one track included (the elegant Portrait of a Romantic on which he plays bass clarinet and recorder over a discreet bed of synths). No matter, there are plenty of compensations: the interplay with guitarist John Abercrombie; the chamber-jazz of The Returning Exile with conductor John Warren and a brass section; his mesmerising multi-tracked instruments on Edges of Illusion ... Fine musician and a good calling card series.

Label: ECM/Ode