Sometimes sadness is all there is. Short Stories takes its title from Rayner's loss of loved ones, using jazz to tell the stories of those taken too soon. So ‘Braw Boy’ is a Celtic blues for a young man, ‘There is a Crack in Everything’ is for a loved family member, while ‘Life Lived Wide’ is a fitting title for a Cartwright song dedicated to Esbjörn Svensson but also to Debbie Dickinson, the ‘seventh Guest Star’ who also contributed so much to the wider jazz world. Not that Short Stories is mournful, though at times it is touched by callings deeper than tears. McLoughlin's ‘Buster Breaks a Beat’ is a funksome dancer with Birch to the fore and rattling keys from Lodder, who is superb throughout. Likewise, Cartwright does her Grant Green thing, particularly on Rayner's urgent, bluesy ‘Here and Now.’ It all climaxes with the affirming ‘Seeing Round Corners’, but as we know that's a double-edged skill. Knowing what faces us around the last bend can galvanise, yet also terrify.