The Greg Foat Group

The Greg Foat Group’s exhilarating take on modern jazz brings together bold experimentation, adventurous instrumentation, and analog recording into a sound informed as much by soundtracks and library music as by modal and soul-jazz. Formed in 2009 and led by pianist/composer/arranger/DJ Foat, the GFG consisted of top sessionmen Rob Mach (saxophone), Trevor Walker (trumpet/flügelhorn), Tony Coote (drums), Jacob Ohvall (bass), Henric Strall (acoustic guitar), Phil Achille (double bass), and Marius Ptas (guitar). The band’s 2011 debut long-player Dark Is the Sun — issued on the legendary Jazzman label — was a concept album recorded in Sweden that recalled the vibrancy of the British modern jazz scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s. This was followed by the spacy, Moog-laden, Sci-Fi-themed Girl and Robot with Flowers in 2012, before a residency at the Playboy Club in Mayfair, London resulted in a thrilling live album released in 2014. In contrast, the following year the band recorded the more ambient and pastoral The Dancers at the Edge of Time in a chapel near Foat’s hometown of Ventnor, Isle of Wight, UK. This recording featured a string quartet and woodwinds, with the church organ itself taking center stage in the proceedings. 2016′s Cityscapes/Landscapes returned to the late-’60s Brit jazz/jazz-rock sound, with the former being written during Foat’s stint as a DJ in Stockholm and the latter back in the rural Isle of Wight; the album represents a lucid musical journey between the two contrasting environments. ~ Matthew Garbutt