Blues And Soul Magazine

Straight up, straight ahead, you will find this very enjoyable if you like 60s American releases of this nature from the likes of Verve and Prestige. It’s nice to review a classy piece of real jazz with genuine American classical jazz influence without it sauntering into smooth jazz drabness.

Out of the East End of London Sunlightsquare Records were set up as a collective of jazz musicians and singers that frequented the better jazz clubs in London.

Brass virtuoso Quentin Collins brings us real stylish jazz in this album with the real smokey, retro feel. A seven track offering it centres on Collin’s great playing throughout and brings us good interpretations of works from sources such as Coltrane and Thelonius Monk.
Cuts on the album include the classic “Mr QC” with Collin’s trumpet driving it along in fine style, the rather over-cooked “Pavane” with it’s push to classical orchestration and rather arty interpretations and the fantastic mid tempo dancer cum foot-tapper “Sly Street”, which is a track to brighten any dull day.

Adventurous throughout, it’s worth supporting this home-grown label and some genuine UK real jazz output.



SARAH MARSHALL
 

The Guardian
Friday April 13, 2007


(Sunlightsquare Records)

With jazz courses turning out bebop trumpeters by the busload, the arrival of a new contender can still be interesting news for the live jazz circuit, often less so for the recorded one.

Young brass virtuoso Quentin Collins - sometimes heard with Michael Garrick, but most often in recent times with former rock drummer Dylan Howe's jazz quintet - likes the bop trumpet legend Booker Little and Mingus Big Band sideman Alex Sipiagin. Little's harmonic adventurousness and Sipiagin's rich tone can both be heard in Collins' sound on this vigorous set.

Tommy Smith's brutally powerful drummer Alyn Cosker constantly ignites the music, the vibraphonist Jim Hart moves between a guitar-like sound and a traditionally delicate vibes glimmer, while guest saxophonist Tony Kofi brings his vinegary tone and nervy agility to pieces by Monk and Coltrane.

Faure's Pavane is a slightly overblown exercise in jazz/classical bravura, but Monk's Four in One has both fiery Kofi and a stealthily insinuating Hart, and Cosker's power lifts Collins' Sly Street way out of the rut of the mid-tempo Latin-jazz groover.


JOHN FORDHAM

The List
25 April 2007

Trumpeter Quentin Collins is an emerging name on the London jazz scene, and this debut album suggests that the buzz around his work is well justified. His bright, cutting tone is in a recognisable line of descent from the likes of Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan, and his phrasing adds a contemporary edge to the post-bop idioms of his compositions.

He includes four originals here (with a nod to Coltrane on ‘Mr Q.C.’), although his slightly eerie adaptation of Faure’s ‘Pavane’ is also more Collins than the Classical original.

Alto saxophonist Tony Kofi joins the quartet on the two jazz covers, Monk’s ‘Four In One’ and Coltrane’s ‘26-2’. Jim Hart’s fleet, rippling vibraphone lines are a very effective complement to Collins’ trumpet work, and the rhythm department is manned by the current bass and drum team in Tommy Smith’s quartet, American bassist Michael Janisch and our own Alyn Cosker. Worth checking out.


KENNY MATHIESON