Latest releases reviewed

We're Old Fashioned JDC

Anyone who thinks nostalgia isn't what it used to be should attend Heffernan and Doherty's We're Old Fashioned at the National Concert Hall's John Field Room in Dublin next Wednesday - or listen to their new CD, where, again ably backed by bassist Dave Fleming and drummer Myles Drennan, they revisit the Great American Song Book and the world of their eponymous stage show. Heffernan's voice is probably now at its mature best, the pitching and diction crystal clear, the phrasing spot on, while pianist Doherty's enjoyment of the idiom is obvious. Notable are a slow, grooving Alexander's Ragtime Band, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, the Shearing/Peggy Lee arrangement of I'm Always True to You Darling in My Fashion, and Doherty's solo version of a forgotten Rodgers/Hammerstein gem, That's for Me. Ray Comiskey

Fun Jazzizit

It is exactly what it says: this is the great tenor in slightly more unbuttoned form than usual. In the last decade Wellins has reached a rare level of maturity. His reading of melody is masterly. His solos seize you almost by stealth; expressively bent notes, flurries of phrases, perfectly placed rhythmically and dynamically, gradually coalesce into formal statements so well constructed that they hardly seem improvised - though they must be. Here, with his marvellous working group, Mark Edwards (piano/Hammond), Andy Cleyndert (bass) and Spike Wells (drums), he offers a programme of originals, including a standout Angel of the North, spiced with things like The Odd Couple and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - and some of the most poised bop tenor around.

www.jazzizit.co.uk Ray Comiskey

Aires Tango CamJazz

Girotto is an experienced Argentinian saxophonist and prolific composer who takes his Escenas Argentinas quartet - Alessandro Gwis (piano/keyboards), Marco Siniscalco (bass guitar) and Michele Rabbia (percussion) - through 13 originals inspired by scenes of daily life in contemporary Argentina shot by photographer Giancarlo Ceraudo. Using occasional intros of voices and street noises, the results simultaneously inhabit the worlds of jazz and the tango. The improvised and the written sit easily together, but there's no mistaking the unifying spirit of the music, which is suffused with a mixture of elegance and sensuality, pleasure and melancholy. Girotto, mostly on soprano, is a fluent player, Gwis a graceful pianist and the rhythm section is beyond reproach.

www.CamJazz.com Ray Comiskey