Bleep

Gondwana Records boss and trumpeter Matthew Halsall steps into the band-leader’s limelight again for the first time since 2015’s Into Forever. The aptly-titled Salute to the Sun is equally a salute to the free-thinking jazz spirit behind British jazz and the cosmic embrace of Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, as each composition inhales and exhales with a deeply-felt sense for bucolic expansiveness. The likes of ‘Joyful Spirits of the Universe’ and the 11-minute title track savour their wistful piano chords, and pepper their atmospheres with classy brass, wandering upright bass and cascading percussion.