Album review: Noel Langley – Edentide

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, first-call UK session trumpeter Noel Langley has played his horn for everyone from the Lulu to Loose Tubes to Radiohead. Now at the age of 50, he finally gets round to making his debut as a leader. Such projects can go either way: either the eminent sideman discovers (along with everyone else) why they should have stuck to answering the phone; or else a great well of music, that has been gathering quietly in the darkness, pours forth with such clarity, it makes everyone else wonder why it took so damn long. Edentide is one of the latter. Langley's Kenny Wheeler-esque playing is full of passion, and the tunes, some of them composed when he was a teenager, are brimming with ideas and optimism. Now for that difficult second album. noellangley.com