Dennis Rollins Velocity Trio - The 11th Gate (Motema 2011)

With his long-running and uncomplicatedly funky BadBone & Co, British trombonist Dennis Rollins has been easy to typecast as a skilful pop/jazz brassman devoted to a hard-pumping horn sound that goes back to James Brown's bands. But this fine trio set is a real surprise – not because Rollins' expressive virtuosity was ever in doubt, but because he cuts loose here in the company of Hammond organist Ross Stanley and exciting drummer Pedro Segundo to paint a broader canvas of melody and texture than this lineup ought to permit. There's plenty of grooving, of course. Samba Galactica is a staccato trombone/organ hook over a hip-hop-inflected Latin pulse. Emergence has a brisk stop-time theme and a jazz-swinging counter-melody. Ujamma finds Rollins at his breezily voicelike best, and Eddie Harris's Freedom Jazz Dance ingeniously mixes choppy Hammond-punching with loose-limbed soloing. But in between, there are seductive slower interludes, like the subtle dialogue between Rollins and the excellent Stanley on Everything Is Mind, the warmly traditional jazz ballad The Other Side, and the quiet trombone solo And Here I Sit. It's the kind of thing that draws in jazz-doubters, without selling the art down the Swanee.(John Fordham guardian.co.uk)