Navidad de los Andes ECM****

In this lovely collaboration between the Argentinian Saluzzi brothers, Dino (bandoneon/ composer) and Felix (clarinet/ tenor) and the German cellist Anja Lechner, boundaries aren’t stretched, just ignored. The result, stubbornly resisting categorisation, combines the formality of chamber music with folk elements and jazz improvisation to produce something uniquely beautiful. Though these measured, impressionistic pieces are rooted in Dino’s culture, they evoke the universal: nostalgia, playfulness, solitude and celebration, sentiment and sentimentality. And, thanks to a rapport so intimate that it’s difficult at times to separate the improvised and the written, they do it with the simplest of melodic means, making the most subtle use of dynamics and the contrasting colours afforded by the grave eloquence of cello, classical clarinet, soft- toned tenor and bandoneon. See ecmrecords.com