With his jam-packed annual global touring schedule, Kyle Eastwood must spend more time on tour buses and in hotels than he does at home in Paris. That’s something the titles of his compositions over the last decade have tended to reflect and there’s a glamourous picture postcard element to previous albums such as 2011’s Songs from the Chateau. The new one, In Transit, on the other hand gets down to the nitty-gritty with road-tested originals penned by Eastwood and his regular British band, taking the retro classic jazz route, alongside a few jazz standards. Kicking off with Quentin Collins’ Nat Adderley-like gospel-flavoured ‘Soulful Times’, the 1960s flavour runs deep with the band’s hard-bop composition ‘Rush Hour’ before a hard-hitting take of an earlier Basie/ Foster’s ‘Blues in Hoss’ Flat’ has a Cannonball-influenced style solo by Italian guest alto-saxophonist Stefano Di Battisto, who also plays soprano on Eastwood’s slinky fretless bass-led cover of ‘Cinema Paradiso’ (Love Theme)’. Another Eastwood hard-bop derivative ‘Rockin’ Ronnie’s’, in homage to his favourite London jazz club, sounds like it could be a newly uncovered take from a Blue Note Studio recording session, with a muscular solo by tenor saxophonist Brandon Allen. You might know what you’re getting with Eastwood, more or less, but it’s the collective spirit of the ensemble – something that’s been grafted to perfection on the road – that really counts.