Expanding to One

Expanding to One is an album of shifting, meditative, and numinous ensemble jazz, largely improvised live in front of an audience over three sessions by a core band of drums, bass, flute, and sax led by bassist Seth Ford-Young, with a larger floating guest membership supplying Wurlitzer keys, guitar, harp, vocals and brass. The style is spiritual, devotional jazz from the serene-and-controlled rather than fiery-and-furious school, the intensity rising from their unhurried, dedicated slow-burn approach and the magic that can occur when musicians lock in and ride the peaks and troughs together. At times it’s as motionless and quietly simmering as a late summer mid-afternoon, an album that feels like it had to take a slow pace due to almost oppressive heat, rewarding the listener with sublime moments of musical space, elongated tension, and unhurriedly revealed shimmering melodies. Expanding To One is music to soothe and revitalise, jazz as a tonic for the soul.