Measured and evocative, Halsall’s fourth outing is a concise gem

The music of UK trumpeter Matthew Halsall is as intriguing as it is even-keeled, and Fletcher Moss Park, his fourth album, is broadly representative. At a digestible 40 minutes, the set relies heavily on the ethereal harp of Rachael Gladwin, which puts one in mind of Alice Coltrane’s trance-like jazz of earlier decades. Adam Fairhall’s stark piano voicings, and the harmonised lines of Halsall and saxophonist Nat Birchall, recall the language of McCoy Tyner, though the music’s temperature is cooler as it ebbs and flows. In its more restrained way, it predicted the kind of sound Kamasi Washington would start documenting a few years later. Elegant strings appear (and Halsall himself does not) on “Sailing Out to Sea” and “Wee Lan (Little Orchid)”, while Lisa Mallett’s flute brings another new flavour on “The Sun in September” and drummer Luke Flowers stirs things up rhythmically on the closing “Finding My Way”.