Larry Stonephace Stabbins - Transcendental - feat. Zoe Rahman (Noetic Records 2012)

"Larry "Stonephace" Stabbins has long been a maverick. He was an inventive free-jazz saxophonist in the 1970s, then a significant figure on the dance-jazz scene through his co-leadership of Working Week, with guitarist Simon Booth. His last album (with Portishead's Adrian Utley) had trip-hop connections, but sax inspirations Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler and John Coltrane are evident on this sparky set, and that classy pianist Zoe Rahman cranks up the McCoy Tyner-like energy at every turn. Stabbins' Ayler-like cry opens the disc against piano and percussion eddies, but a 1970s-Tyner Latin-jazz feel soon arrives, and reappears at various tempos. The leader's playing spans spine-tingling, high-register soprano sax (Anomalous Monism), tenor-ballad opulence (White Queen Psychology), multiphonic pleadings (Transcendental Euphoria) and delicate flute with Rahman's coaxing piano (Immanence). The incantatory Coltrane approach receives a devoted tribute from the whole hard-grooving band on the Latin-dance finale Soul Train. They play a Southbank freestage gig at the London jazz festival on 17 November." John Fordham / guardian.co.uk