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   review by John Eyles
  2025-12-15
John Butcher / Phil Durrant / Mark Wastell: Poznan: Appropriate Density (Confront Recordings)

The London-based threesome of tenor and soprano saxophonist John Butcher, Phil Durrant on electric mandolin and electronics, and Mark Wastell on drums and percussion, recorded their first album, Around the Square, Above the Hill, together at The Vortex Jazz Club, London, on 23rd April 2024 and at The Rose Hill, Brighton, on 26th April 2024. It comprised six tracks ranging in length from 3:43 to 13:44 and ran for nearly 48 minutes. It was released on Wastell's Confront label on 6th December 2024.

Despite that date, the three of them were familiar with each other. Butcher and Durrant had first recorded together in February 1989 when, along with the late guitarist John Russell, drummer Paul Lovens and trombonist Radu Malfatti, they formed the Acta label. Wastell formed his own Confront label in 1996, and, by August 2000, Durrant (on violin) had recorded for the label, alongside Wastell (on cello). Butcher did not record with Wastell until April 2014, the album Membrane on which Wastell played tam-tam and electronics.

The title of the trio's second album Poznań: Appropriate Density is also the title of that album's only track, which clocks in at just over forty-two minutes. It was recorded at the eighth Spontaneous Music Festival, at Dragon Social Club, in Poznań, Poland, on October 4th2024. The three musicians played the same instruments as they did on their first album together. Although the threesome sound similar to the way they did previously, the extended track sometimes leads a player astray or to drop out while they listen to their bandmates' playing. Altogether all three players gel together well and whet the appetite for their third album as a trio.







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