A Dance More Sweetly Played

It’s rare, as a reviewer, to be sent an album you’ll have on repeat. A Dance Sweetly Played is such a recording. A set of 12 instrumentals – ten originals, two covers – radiantly played by Cape Town-based pianist-composer Kyle Shepherd, double bassist Shane Cooper and drummer Jonno Sweetman, it’s a work whose lightness of touch (I visualised fractals spiralling from Shepherd’s fingers) lets the personality of each piece emerge, and features sufficient percussive aggression on keys and kit to reinforce the combined virtuosity of three master musicians in flow. The award-winning Shepherd works across film and theatre music – including projects for Netflix, and for celebrated South African arts practitioner William Kentridge, whose work inspired the album’s title – and last released a trio album in 2010 (not counting a 2014 quartet release with saxophonist Buddy Wells). This one, then, is a cause for rejoicing, not the least thanks to a sublime cover of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ that finds the trio improvising over those gorgeous rolling chords. The rhythms of West Africa are here, too, oh-so-subtly woven into ‘For Oumou Sangaré’, a glistening paean to the Malian diva that reinforces her status as a pan-African icon. Essential listening.