Laura Jurd’s Dinosaur - To the Earth

The Guardian 80

(Edition)
The British trumpeter’s third album with her Dinosaur quartet hooks your attention with the very first chord

Anybody accumulating evidence for the existence of old souls could do worse than check out the Hampshire-born trumpeter-composer Laura Jurd’s contribution to jazz in the eight years since her remarkable debut album, Landing Ground. Jurd seems unconcerned by transient fashions or enrolment in any kind of scene, and pursues a private muse that draws on jazz, folk traditions from Europe and the Middle East, and the harmonic language of Stravinsky – yet her work is always spiritedly accessible, and often suggests wordless songs. To the Earth is Jurd’s third release with her Dinosaur quartet, a closely bonded ensemble embodying the jazz axiom that composition and improvisation are an inseparable two-way stretch.