George Burt-Raymond Macdonald Sextet - CD review

JAZZ

Boohoo Fever (Leo Records)

This disc comes out of the same performance-plus-recording project at An Tobar in Mull as last year’s A Day for a Reason, centred on the Tobermory clock and the two women closely associated with it, the adventurous Victorian traveller Isabella Bird and her sister, Henrietta.

The ever-resourceful Sextet is jointly led by guitarist George Burt and saxophonist Raymond MacDonald, with George Lyle on bass, Alyn Cosker on drums, and Nicola MacDonald on vocals and melodica. As in the earlier disc, they team up with pianist Keith Tippett for an exploratory ramble across a wide-ranging sonic and improvisational landscape, richly varied in mood, sound, musical texture, degrees of abstraction and modes of expression.