Geoff Gascoyne & Dave O'Higgins Quartet - Got the Real Note (2012)

Of course you’ve got to check out the bright young things, but if ever there was a band to default to when fads and fancies have been and gone, it’s this illustrious quartet. Their gift is to reach deep into the tradition and yet, through the writing nexus of Gascoyne and O’Higgins, they keep the quick of something new about them. This is especially true of Got The Real Note, which is a sequence of contrafacts: new tunes written to tried and tested changes. So the foundation of Gascoyne’s title track is ‘Alone Together’, while O’Higgins ‘Lady Face’ is overlaid on Tad Dameron’s ‘Lady Bird’. (O’Higgins in turn rearranges this tune on his big band outing with Pete Wraight).
There are variations on the formula: to honour the beauty of the tune, there’s a straight rendition of ‘I’m A Fool To Want You’, made all the more moving by O’Higgins leaving the melody unadorned. Whatever the concept that underwrites the recording, though, its strengths remain the eternal verities: a damn fine tune (the smiling ‘It Turned Out Nice Again’), a boppish intensity (‘What Was That?’, which O’Higgins conjures from Cole Porter’s ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’), and swing enough to make your toes curl (on any track you fancy). Old and new as one: guess that adds up to timeless.