Sam Braysher with Michael Kanan - Golden Earrings

The Guardian 80

(Fresh Sound New Talent)

The American songbook has been given such a going-over by generations of jazz musicians that the songs themselves are often scarcely recognisable today. Braysher, a young British alto saxophonist, goes back to some original song sheets and tackles them afresh, along with a few venerable jazz standards. The results, played in his airy, vibrato-less tone, are both delightful and surprising. His partner in this venture is American pianist and song expert Michael Kanan. Together, they rediscover the pristine elegance of both melody and harmony in pieces by Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Nat King Cole, among others, and bring them to light through their own sensitive improvisations.