Trish Clowes: Tangent – review

With the rising generation of British, college-educated jazz musicians, it's often hard to separate the instrumentalist from the composer. Take 26-year-old Trish Clowes. She plays wonderful tenor saxophone with a lightness of tone reminiscent of the young Stan Getz and composes luminous music that inhabits that intriguing world at the ill-defined edges of jazz and contemporary classical music. The nine pieces on her debut album range from a improvised duet with trumpeter Nick Smart to two compositions for 35-piece orchestra. Most of the names listed are new to me, which is exciting in itself.