Legacy!

Londons Ruby Rushton offer a potent and earthy blend of soulful jazz and Latin influences on their fifth album, 2025s Legacy!. The album follows 2019s Ironside and finds the quartet, led by alto and soprano saxophonist/flutist Ed Cawthorne (aka Tenderlonious), further expanding their artfully funky, modal jazz sound. Along with Cawthorne, the album features longtime bandmates trumpeter Nick Walters, keyboardist Aidan Shepherd, and drummer Tim Carnegie. Together, theyve carved out a distinctive niche on the contemporary British jazz scene with a style thats as informed by daring post-bop attitudes as it is Afrobeat, Latin, and hip-hop traditions. Whats particularly compelling about the groups sound here is how it feels at once throwback and utterly contemporary, evoking the heady late-60s albums of Wayne Shorter, but in a way that feels of the now. Cuts like "Charlies Way," "La Nina," and "Shadows" showcase their tropical jazz brew, mingling breezy flute accents and bird-like Brazilian Cuica drum sounds with clubby swing grooves. Similarly, on "Walk to Regios" they deftly mash up the funky urbane stylism of 70s Brecker Brothers with the New Jack Swing-informed hard bop swagger of the late Roy Hargrove. Likewise, "The Lighthouse" with its minor-key 3/4 groove, brings to mind the slinky style of Lee Morgan. Throughout the album, they return to the "Theme from Legacy," an Afro-Cuban-inspired song that shifts and mutates with an organic flow, as if each time you are checking back in on one long jam. Its a feeling that extends to all of Legacy!, giving you the sense that Ruby Rushton are communing with the spirits of their musical heroes. ~ Matt Collar