Early jazz was first and foremost dance music, a fact which is all too easily forgotten these days. As each new dance craze arrived on the scene – from Charleston andRagtime, through Foxtrot and Lindy-hop, and then on to Jive – the development of jazz music moved along with it. Only later, beginning with ‘Swing’ and ‘Bebop’ was jazz finally established as music for the concert hall. The quartet ‘Echoes of Swing’ have put a clear marker down with their latest album ‘Dancing’. This band has been at the crossroads of such currents and developments for many years now. The pianist Bernd Lhotzky, alto saxophone player Chris Hopkins (aside the ‘Echoes’, like Lhotzky, a world class ‘stride’ pianist), the trumpet player (and vocalist) Colin Dawson and drummer Oliver Mewes are however, certainly anything else than a ‘dance band’, and although they have their roots in classic jazz, they have nothing in common with ‘retro’ trends or ‘neo-swing’. With their zeal for the unrivalled exhaustless – and unexhausted harmonic and melodic wealth of material, they bring the music itself to a merry dance.

The album ‘Dancing’ is more an anthology which takes a wry look at the theme of dance in jazz, occasionally heading off at a tangent, and making some very surprising connections. This is a waltz through the history of jazz. As demonstrated by other ACT colleagues such as Joachim Kühn or liro Rantala, it begins at the very beginning with Johann Sebastian Bach. A Gavotte from the English suite No. 6, a baroque dance, is transformed into a melodic platform for an effervescent drum feature. A journey through Scott Joplin’s ‘Ragtime Dance’, James P. Johnson’s ‘Charleston’, Cole Porter’s ‘Dream Dancing’, or Sidney Bechet’s ‘Premier Bal’ to Pixinguinha’s Brasilian Choro ‘Diplomata’, Bernd Lhotzky’s Cuban Bolero ‘Salir a la Luz’ or the exotic Ellington-like timbre of ‘Ballet Of The Dunes’ from Chris Hopkins.

This is dance in jazz, but not as we know it. For a start, a third of the tracks are original compositions (more than on any other ‘Echoes Of Swing’ album) from Lhotzky, Hopkins and Dawson.As a group, the four maestros have taken the other selections and have created something discretely and entirely original. Nothing here is re-enacted. Chris Hopkins’ work on the Rodgers/Hart standard ‘Dancing On The Ceiling’ has, by using clever rhythmical displacements and audacious interwoven voicings, rendered it an almost completely new tune.