Gerard Presencer/Danish Radio Big Band – Groove Travels: trumpeter on a joyride

Gerard Presencer was just 18 when he played a solo on US3's version of Cantaloupe Island and suddenly found himself on one of the bestselling jazz records of the 1990s.

Nowadays, the English trumpeter is older, wiser and living in Copenhagen, where he holds down a trumpet seat with the legendary Danish Radio Big Band.

One of the great jazz ensembles of Europe, with a lineage stretching back to leaders such as Thad Jones and Bob Brookmeyer, the DRBB is a finely tuned high-performance vehicle, and, on Groove Travels, Presencer is like a mischievous kid taking it for a joyride.

A set of funky, very approachable original tunes, alongside lush re-settings of Lennon and McCartney and Wayne Shorter, take the classic big band sound down a road less travelled.

[ editionrecords.com ]