Gato Libre - Nomad (Nomansland Records, 2007) ***½

The spouses Natsuki Tamura (trumpet) and Satoko Fujii (usually on piano, here only on accordion), have something with cats (not only for their Gato Libre band, but cats also figure on some other CD covers). Apart from that, they are musical adventurers, and their Gato Libre outfit could not be further removed from their usual more avant-garde endeavours. I invite everyone with open ears and a solid heart to listen to Tamura's "Hada Hada", which brings the most improbable hard electronic industrial free jazz, a subgenre only represented by that album. "Nomad" is at the entire other end of the spectrum, and is the sophomore effort of this band, bringing accessible jazz, founded in European tradition, ie. French musette, Viennese waltzes, Scottish dances, some klezmer, flamenco, and all this full of melancholy and warm-hearted sympathy. Every track has the name of another Europan city, and is created on the basis of the local musical tradition, then nicely packaged, with a ribbon around it, ready to be sent home to the fatherland. The other two Europeans at our service are Kazuhiko Tsumura on acoustic guitar and Norikatsu Koreyasu on bass. This is light, refreshing, sensitive chamber jazz, and the combination of the four chosen instruments, together with the musicians' mastery of them, makes this a really nice album, far above the average of similar projects.

Listen to In Krakow, In November and compare with the same piece from their trumpet-piano album