Poor Stuart

In Poor Stuart the London-born singer, double bassist and saxophonist has produced a rather extraordinary acoustic album of songs that defy easy categorisation. Backed by guitar, mandolin and fiddle, the only tag that usefully comes to mind is ‘string band,’ for it's the one common denominator across the dozen tracks that span at least four different folk traditions from around the globe. The influence of American old-time music is strong, heard most potently on the bluegrass hoedown ‘Sideman’ and the old Gene Autry cowboy song ‘Back in the Saddle’. Blues standard ‘Trouble in Mind’, recorded by everyone from Dinah Washington to Nina Simone, is delivered in the style of an old English folk ballad before it segues brilliantly into ‘Fasiken’, a trad Norwegian fiddle tune. ‘Mélodie Pour Jules’ is also rooted in British folk tradition while ‘Good Boy’ combines Western swing jive with a New Orleans jazz vibe and is the sort of inspired fusion you might associate with Béla Fleck, whose banjo would mesh perfectly with the other stringed instruments deployed here. ‘Torontolu’ with its unusual time signature, is based on Armenian folk and finds Somers' sax doing an impressive impersonation of Djivan Gasparyan's duduk playing. Recommended.