Jazz with classical strings goes back a century, but the devil has been in the detail of real integration, so the classical players don’t just gracefully trot alongside while the jazzers duck and dive. On this set of originals and canny covers of Cole Porter, Antônio Carlos Jobim and her late jazz-piano heroes Bill Evans and Kenny Kirkland, British pianist Kate Williams has imaginatively fused her jazz trio (featuring bassist Oli Hayhurst and drummer David Ingamells) and the pan-European Guastalla string quartet. The compatibility is clear from Love for Sale’s famous opening motif, a languid strings swoon hijacked by a Latin piano vamp easing into hip piano improv, while the Porter original murmurs encouragingly on behind every bold rhythmic turn. Jobim’s cinematically romantic Portrait in Black and White contrasts Williams’ silvery piano sound with the undulations of the strings, and the leader’s terrific, Lennie Tristano-like bebop twister Big Shoes has the whole band sounding like a single nimble instrument. It’s often polished, refined crossover music, but there’s plenty of spark and bite to it.
