This is the fifth album as a leader by Czech bassist / composer Jaromir Honzak and his second release on the excellent Czech label Animal Music. It was recorded by the same Czech / Polish quartet which recorded the previous album „A Question To All Your Answers“ which also included Czech guitarist David Doruzka and Polish pianist Michal Tokaj and drummer Lukasz Zyta – this time expanded to a quintet with the addition of American saxophonist Chris Cheek, Honzak’s colleague from the Berklee College of Music days. The PKF String Quartet plays on one track. The album presents eight original compositions, all by Honzak. The music was splendidly recorded at the SONO Records studio and engineered by Milan Cimfe.The music is, as usual, a wonderful collection of beautiful melodies, deeply melancholic and superbly crafted, which Honzak manages to produce time after time from the depth of his Artistic mind. After listening to his almost entire recorded legacy, he emerges as one of the most consistent European Jazz composers today, appearing to be able to reinvent himself time after time without repeating any idea more than once.The quintet also does not disappoint, with all the participants playing absolutely perfectly. Tokaj is, as always, the epitome of melancholy, young Doruzka has always something new up his sleeve, Zyta is a true Master of the percussive sounds and even Cheek, out of his American habitat, sounds remarkably European and solos beautifully, especially on the saxophone trio track, which is the most open piece on the album. Honzak’s bass parts are of course the skeleton of the music, always perfectly in tune and on time, leading the way but in fact creating a perfect spacetime for the music to develop within it.Overall this is another brilliant album by Honzak, a wonderful example of the intrinsic beauty of European Jazz and the importance of composition in Jazz, without which all music sound simply hollow, regardless of how well it is played. Recorded eleven years before these lines are written, this music proves to be absolutely timeless and deeply moving, as always. Obviously, this is a must have for all European Jazz connoisseurs, whenever they might be…

Adam Baruch

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