This Italo-British quartet aims to bridge the divide between the rhythmic and harmonic sensibilities of British jazz giants such as John Taylor and Kenny Wheeler, in whose trio Oltremare leader Andrea Di Biase is currently performing double bass duties, and the melodic world of the great Italian fi lm composer Nino Rota. Remember all those Fellini fi lms with wonderful, evocative themes? Rota wrote those. Accordionist Richard Galliano released a wonderful Rota-based set last year on Deutsche Grammophon to mark the centenary of his birth, and Warner Jazz is putting out the original cinematic recordings again. Anyway, to return to the subject to hand, this debut disc from the quartet is a delight, full of memorable theme writing (try the poised, transmogrifi ed blues of ‘Pinastra’) and handsome, minutely calibrated improvisation. ‘Even Shorter’, at six minutes and 12 seconds in length – it's presumably titled for Wayne of the same name rather than its brevity – gives Michael Chillingworth the opportunity to blow with brio. At times, US post-bop infl uences are to the fore, as on ‘Chanson’; at others, it's more folkish, Italian inspirations that shape the material, as, unsurprisingly perhaps, on ‘Nino’. A tidy debut from a quartet with a distinctive sound and approach.