Album Reviews

Here's a new direction for Britain's most accomplished trombonist, a jazz-funk session in the company of a very good band, but in truth it's only a partial success. Nightingale's a technical wizard and plays very well throughout, but he just sounds too polite for this sort of approach, which demands a healthy dose of down-and-dirty to really make an impact. His front-line partner, altoist Nigel Hitchcock, sounds much more at home on a series of good originals, as does Graham Harvey on electric piano. AV

Anita O'Day: Sings For Oscar (Poll Winners Records) 9.99

A steady stream of reissues is doing much to plug the gaping hole in the availability of O'Day's brilliant late-50s' vocal albums that has existed for years. This one's an absolute peach – two albums worth of material, the first of which finds her in the company of Oscar Peterson, the second sparking off a larger group. O'Day is brilliant throughout, delivering wonderful swinging versions of Old Devil Moon and Them There Eyes with Peterson, and a definitive Sweet Georgia Brown with the band. It doesn't come much better than this. AV

Stravinsky: Petrushka / Pulcinella (Exton OVCL 00378) 16.99

Exton is taking sound recording into a new era, the impact, clarity and subtlety being quite extraordinary. Jap van Zweden, no stranger to Leeds, directs performances of Stravinsky's ballets with the unhurried

pulse that would delight dancers, giving the piano a solo role in a Petrushka full of sadness. The playing of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Chamber Philharmonic is immaculate. DD

Mozart: Mitridate (Dacapo 6220580-82 (3CDs)) 22.99

Mozart was barely 14 when he composed a three-hour historic opera on the story of the multiple lovers of Mitridate, King of Pontus. Confused on disc by having female voices in the two major male roles, Maria Fontosh is a striking coloratura, matched by the dramatic soprano, Henriette Bonde-Hansen, as two of the lovers. Mathias Zachariassen does at times sound stressed as Mitridate, but I doubt the opera will ever receive a finer recording. DD