Alan Barnes and Dave Newton: Inside Out / Martin Taylor and Alan Barnes: Two for the Road (From The Northern Echo)

Alan Barnes and Dave Newton: Inside Out / Martin Taylor and Alan Barnes: Two for the Road

4:30pm Thursday 29th December 2011 in Jazz By Peter Bevan

This has been an outstandingly good year for Alan Barnes’ Woodville label with outstanding discs from Scott Hamilton, Ken Peplowski and Warren Vache among others.

You can add these contrasting duets to that list with Barnes clearly inspired by and at ease with his two musical colleagues.

He and pianist Dave Newton have been friends since college, in 1977, and have already recorded several duo albums. On his last visit to Darlington Arts Centre, Newton reckoned that this new one could be the best yet. Bartnes is featured on alto and baritone saxes and clarinet on a mix of tunes including Charlie Parker’s Segment, Bill Evans’ Very Early and Chick Corea’s Windows as well as several standards.

On the second CD, with guitarist Martin Taylor, Barnes plays just clarinet and here the repertoire runs from Taylor’s Serafina and Barnes’ Lola Flores, to a rather wide mix from Be My Love to Stranger on the Shore. Need I say that the playing on both CDs is some of the finest you’ll hear?

You can hear tracks from these, and the others mentioned above, at woodvillerecords.com/