Wadada Leo Smith

These quartet recordings feature the improvisational skills of trumpeter Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, guitarist John Coxon, keyboard player Pat Thomas and drummer Mark Sanders - an ensemble that convened at Abbey Road Studios last year to commit these five pieces to tape. Wadada takes the lead, perhaps most staunchly reminding you that this is, at heart, a jazz album thanks to his florid, lyrical phrasing. The relationships formed between the instruments are an immediate source of intrigue, forming plenty of complex exchanges, throughout which Coxon - who also assumes a producer's role - puts in some sterling textural work, on 'For Mongezi Feza' laying down precise feedback formations that at times are reminiscent of Thurston Moore's most incisive and restrained outings.