In April this year, 34 European jazz and new-music celebs associated with Germany’s inclusive and open-minded ACT record label played a day of concerts to mark 25 years since the company’s first release. The exuberant blend of rock-climax burn-ups and unpredictable improv is well caught on these nine tracks. ACT’s wide appeal is warmly, if conventionally, affirmed in Nils Landgren’s hoarsely confiding vocal on Send in the Clowns, the Crusaders-like funk of Walk Tall or the swell of a brooding folk dance in violinist Adam Bałdych’s anthemic fusion crescendo on Quo Vadis. Some of the jazziest spontaneity surfaces in saxophonist Émile Parisien and piano legend Joachim Kühn’s zigzags on Missing a Page, from vocalist Andreas Schaerer’s percussive and falsetto effects on the groove-shifting B&H, and from Nguyên Lê’s violin-like guitar flights. A rousing Dodge the Dodo celebrates the late Esbjörn Svensson (with his young sons fanning the blaze on bass and drums), and the soul-vocal finale on We Are Family naturally brings the house down.
