Nairobi Trio: Absolutely!

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * )

Variously a swinging and supple set, this was recorded live at jazz festivals in Norway last year. It features as centrepieces the romantic seven-minute original Portugal, in which the music dissolves down to Peter Koopman's bass before Richard Adam's violin emerges to parry with Andrew Dixon's weaving sax, and a treatment of Charlie Chaplin's ballad Smile.


Longtime followers will have other versions of some of these tracks but there's also Dixon's new, lightly funky Blue Mamba delivered over a bed of effects and wah-wah from guitarist John Quigley. And the Quigley/Adams discreetly Celtic composition Firth of Forth is always worth re-hearing.

Label: Nairobi