Dato’s quartet has been in existence since the mid-1980s, and it provides an ideal setting for the leader’s ebullient and sometimes outrageous work on tenor, baritone and bass clarinet. His co-conspirator Piero Ponzo opens Fes Montuno with some finger-popping clarinet. Literally so: as he riffs along, there comes fading up behind him the sounds of the other bandmembers snapping their fingers and singing along with the groove. It’s the most conventionally “jazz” moment on an album that draws sustenance from sounds and rhythms from all over the world, taking in sardonically foursquare marches, melismatic Middle-Eastern music, European folksong, tango, calypso, and anything else that takes Dato’s fancy. “Kathmandu,” for instance, initially seems to confirm its title, opening on a gong-crash and a sinuously exotic theme, but the mood is subverted by a silly vocal refrain (“Kathmandu-ah-ah”), and the piece then spins into an entirely new orbit with a free-form baritone workout from the leader and a slice of funk courtesy Ponzo’s alto. This is a very briskly paced album: while it’s possible to follow the track listings closely, it’s best to just sit back and enjoy the ride, especially as each composition is itself typically further subdivided into stylistically incommensurate sections set at different tempos. There are a few pauses for a stylish melancholia – as in “Lagrimas de Picador” or the unexpectedly sober saxophone duo that announces “La Poulet Télévisé” – but mostly this is radiantly sunny music, with a strong dose of humour.

Nate Dorward

Coda, Nov 2001-Feb 2002