It’s an alto saxophone sound rarely heard nowadays, cool but intimate, each phrase ending with a tiny shiver of vibrato, and no one deploys it with more delicacy or grace than Allison Neale. This is her musical voice, instantly recognisable, and it remains its calm, fluent self whatever the surroundings.
On this occasion her companions are Dave Green and Steve Brown on bass and drums respectively, and the celebrated New York guitarist Peter Bernstein, who appears to have recorded with everyone. His technique is amazing, using a seamless combination of single-line and chordal playing, and his harmonic ingenuity is endless.
In fact it gets a bit wearing after a while; an occasional touch of the simple and obvious wouldn’t have gone amiss. But there’s some marvellous jazz here, notably a version of Horace Silver’s Split Kick including an ingenious close-harmony theme statement and a clever duet improvisation by saxophone and guitar. There’s an even better one in Motion, which is perhaps the most exciting of the 11 tracks. As for classic ballads, which are a Neale speciality, there’s the unmissable I’m Glad There is You, serene and elegantly expressed, as always.
