Recorded on September 9th 2021 at LOFT, Cologne, Germany, Lovely Music finds the Moscow-born composer and pianist Simon Nabatov in the company of his newly-formed Cologne-based quartet with Sebastian Gille on saxophones, David Helm on bass and Leif Berger on drums plus special guest Ralph Alessi on trumpet. The album's nine tracks are all Nabatov compositions ranging in length from 4'47" to 9'40", a total of sixty-eight minutes. Five of the tracks previously appeared on earlier Nabatov albums — "Margarita" on the quintet album The Master and Margarita (Leo, 2001), "Nature Morte 8"on Nature Morte (Leo, 2001) by a previous Nabatov quartet, "Autumn Music" on the 2003 Leo album of the same title, "Old Fashioned" and "Rickety" both on the quintet album Last Minute Theory (Clean Feed, 2019).
Anyone familiar with Nabatov's music will know that these resurrected tracks are all beautifully melodic from beginning to end, fully in keeping with the album title Lovely Music. Straight from the opener, "Koscha's Delight", (dedicated to Nabatov's pet cat), the four new compositions are just as beguiling and melodic as the older pieces and totally in keeping with them. As a result, the album is coherent throughout.
Rather than jazz music of the head-solos-reprise ilk or freely improvised solos, much of the music here sounds arranged with all five players knowing exactly what they are doing. Yes, there are occasional solos by all concerned which fit in perfectly and are a credit to the players concerned. This new quartet (or quintet, maybe) deserves to be recognised as one of the better ensembles that Nabatov has put together. On this showing, we must hope that the pianist will record with them again. All things considered, Lovely Music is one of Nabatov's best small-group albums. Highly recommended.
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