Many Faces

The cover of this sophomore album by London-based trombonist Justin Thurgur sums up its questing, fizzing, all-for-one spirit. Here, inside a grid of coloured squares, are headshots of just some of the 18 musicians contained within: UK Afrobeat legend Dele Sosimi, British-Turkish drummer Tansay Omar and British-Asian keyboardist Kishon Khan, with whom Thurgur runs the Funkiwala label and plays in Lokkhi Terra, Cubafrobeat and Sosimi’s Afrobeat Orchestra. Collaboration is lifeblood to Thurgur, whose work in the English folk collective Bellowhead is well known; he’s been a session player with leading lights including Cuban percussionist Giraldo Piloto and the late Tony Allen.

This means, of course, that Thurgur’s considerable talents as both player and composer sometimes tend to be overlooked. Thankfully, there’s little chance of that here: each of the album’s six long-playing tracks has been written or co-written by Thurgur, whose dance-loving jazz leanings are especially evident on the Afrobeat-infused ‘The Reality of the Reality’ and his very own all-stops-out ‘How It Is’, and whose solos – standouts in a starry line-up including horn player Graeme Flowers and congueros Oreste Noda and Afla Sackey – reveal chops both powerful and nuanced. Summer just got better.