Less a long day's journey into night…

Dearly befuddled huddle around. Nothing oblique here apart from that pesky diagonal - a forward slash, some might desperately call it - between the words ''Scott'' and ''Grant 5''. Slash thoughts of all that or going for a slash for that matter. Because 'Punctuality' - a tasty original later in the album rather than punctuation - is the name of the game and there's no need to search for the restroom just yet. And these jazzers go from first note to last, measure for measure, beat to beat, bro to bro in search of these tish boom pieces of artistry. And no, not at all like it's Huddie time - because it isn't particularly bluesy or get down funky and dirty - skiffling along. But certainly you may we suggest get enough lead in your belly, an extra boost of calcium deep into your bones by listening. That's especially if you savour straightahead sounds. OK to some sceptics that means maybe overly indulgently paced, swinging mellow outcomes. But no one is faking the chemistry these guys seem to have distilled. If attuned to the sounds of say The Great Kai and JJ and an assortment of Burrellian flavours then Horizon Song will seem as familiar as the face of a friend you haven't seen in years but pick up anyway just where you last left off. Beyond the blue it's certainly a cuddly Canadian band - er Dudley - hunkering down in the studio in Toronto last summer - guitar geezer Andrew Scott playing Ginger to troubadour of the trombone Kelsley Grant's Fred.

… more easy like Sunday morning

Follow the thread the music sends you on because the sound is then hipped in ensemble play by the Rhodes passages less travelled by Amanda Tosoff on the title track which comes up first. No duds spoil the spell and there's plenty of oomph in the punchy offbeats fetched up on Scott's tune 'The Tamarind Tree' and the understated samba feel drummer Terry Clarke cultivates on 'Beautiful Shira' is perfect especially if listening in sequence. That's because it arrives neatly to alter the mood enough. Grant's 'A Tune for Joel,' which has a very deep-starting trombone note after the bass foreplay by Neil Swainson, reliably Pettifordian, is a gem. And once again the remarkable Cory Weeds helmed Cellar Live keeps the flame of straightahead jazz splutteringly in the land of the living and kickingly in rude heath. There's no sense of an embarrassing ellipsis between modern jazz then in the Cellar Live definition and modern jazz now - daddio - at all.