This is Matt Anderson’s fourth record under his own name, and the third to feature this line-up. It’s a well-integrated, swinging and supremely confident ensemble: exactly the sort of outfit that really shines on a live recording, and so it proves here.

This set captures the band playing their own music in front of a homecoming Leeds audience, and the benefits accrued from eight years of working together are plain to hear. Anderson is well established in the UK jazz education nexus between Leeds and the London Conservatoires, in which he has thrived as both student and teacher, but there’s a soulful depth to to his musicality that underpins the academic attention to detail. On 'New Old Blues’ he deploys his warm tone and crisp clean attack in a gospel tinged swinger that conjures up the spirit of 'LockJaw' Davis with as much conviction as his soprano on ‘Northern Journey’ engages with the folk-inspired English-pastoral approach, and the minor-key uptempo of ‘Teleforce’ works the modern mainstream.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Anderson is very comfortable mining the rich seam of jazz that was developed in the UK through the 1970s and 80s by artists like Bobby Wellins, rooted in the language of swinging post-bop but with a distinctive British accent. The band sound terrific as well – Alberto Palau’s approach mirrors Anderson’s own, and Will Harris and Jay Davis both earn mentions in dispatches for their superbly sensitive teamwork throughout.