from Jazzwise Feb 06:
[Tom Barlow]

from The Guardian Feb 06:
[John Fordham]

Trumpeter Tom Arthurs was a Rising Star nominee in the 2004 British jazz awards, for the rhythmically exploratory, patiently composed music of his quintet, Centripede. A member of London's multi-genre F-ire Collective, Arthurs has his own view of that group's experiments with the pulse. This trio set finds him working with two Canadian musicians: pianist Bruce McKinnon and drummer Joe Sorbara.
At times, Arthurs echoes the playing of Kenny Wheeler, and the manipulating of overlaid grooves has some of its ancestry in the work of such Americans as Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman and Greg Osby. Sometimes it sounds like free- improv written down, sometimes like a spiky contemporary-classical music; all of it is expertly performed. The trumpeter's steady, long sounds resemble a hypnotic stare. Ek-ckesiastical is almost a whispery ballad with a brief glimpse of Brahms. And Joe Sorbara's exclamatory P2C2E features the trumpeter's clear, fluid sound and faultless pitching over a mixture of metronomic and free-floating accompaniment. Another step on the way toward Arthurs becoming a major figure.