Quadro Nuevo: Grand Voyage

This German jazz band loves to be sinuous, usually tango-sinuous, with sometimes a sort of klezmer clarinet sinuosity. Sinuous with a slow Middle Eastern lollop in “Musique Tunisian”. But sinuous, and that’s the main thing — sinuous with a harp, sinuous with a samba jog, sinuous in Transylvania with an accordion, sinuous in self-made compositions like “Krim”, sinuous in its interpretation of “Nature Boy”, which was recorded in Brooklyn.

This is a tango “Boy” with a hup-hup-hup and no dreaminess. The sinuosity isn’t squashy — it doesn’t soften the songs, and it keeps them moving. It’s a tango sensibility even on those occasions when it’s not strictly a tango sound. Glide, glide, it goes. It does not linger. Even the instrumental feathering at the end of “Secret Garden” is briskly executed and shifts you quickly to the next number. A precisely modelled set.