Alan Skidmore: After the Rain

The jazz-with-strings cocktail hasn’t always gone down too well. However, this re-issued collection of ballads, first released in 1998, sees tenor saxophonist Alan Skidmore team up with two full orchestras, the Radiophilharmonie Hannover des NDR and Colin Towns’s Mask Symphonic, to often beguiling effect. A longrespected figure on the UK jazz scene, Skidmore sounds unconstrained by the orchestrations, letting the melodies sing out eloquently and effortlessly in such great American songbook favourites as Nature Boy, his saxophone heralded by a magical flurry of woodwind and strings, while in the Rogers and Hart number It’s

Easy to Remember, Skidmore enters the arrangement like a man coming through a door and bursting into song. Three numbers by Skidmore’s hero, John Coltrane, include the inevitable Naima, as well as the album’s title track, in both of which Skidmore dwells on every note with fond consideration. ■