A review of Jack Howard’s “Lost Horizon” album from Rhythms Review magazine.

Author: Martin Jones, Rhythms Review.

Date: December 2009.

Article Text

You see a photo of a guy in a suit holding a trumpet and what do you think? Jazz? Ska, maybe? I don’t know what I was expecting when I finally got around to jamming Jack Howard’s new album onto the nearest portable electronic device. But as soon as opening Crescent Moon began to unfold, I was reminded of Hunters and Collectors (Howard was a member of the band). Something about Howard’s lyrical phrasing and the muscular punctuation from the trumpet…

Howard conjured these nine compositions from fragments he collected from the distant and near past and brought them to life with bassist Kieran Jones, drummer Jeremy Hopkins and pianist Jo Schornikow. The trio does help lend some of the compositions a jazz feel, especially with Schornikow’s piano embellishments.

But the primary instrument is Howard’s vocal – unaffected and believable, much as Seymour’s was – delivering unaffected and believable songs that are only slightly marred by the occasional predilection for overstuffing arrangements. Personally I would have preferred to hear just Howard and the trio render these songs in a more, basic acoustic mode.

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