Tenor saxophonist Alex Merritt, an impressive graduate of the Birmingham Conservatoire’s jazz course, has made a debut album that testifies to the six-year gestation period he gave it, and the creative clout of a terrific quartet featuring pianist John Turville, Kit Downes’ bassist Sam Lasserson, and experienced US drummer Jeff Williams. Merritt makes music of shapely robustness, but he builds in options allowing his improvisers to follow his map or pursue their own diversions. The title track opens with a sidling piano intro from Turville and turns into a 21st-century cool school canter, full of softly whippy melodic turns, developed by the leader in a stealthy tenor break that tonally recalls Warne Marsh. A John Coltrane harmony underpins the serpentine For Peter Schat, Thelonious Monk’s Ugly Beauty and Pannonica get hooting and dark sax treatments respectively, and ragtime piano legend Eubie Blake’s Memories of You highlights Merritt’s skill at slow tempos. This newcomer has his own sound and allows his band to find theirs. It’s a very promising debut.
