Record Award nomination for Echoes Of Swing

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The new album "Blue Pepper" (ACT Music) of the quartet Echoes Of Swing with Colin T. Dawson, Chris Hopkins, Bernd Lhotzky und Oliver Mewes was recently nominated for the German Record Critics' Award (I/2014. The German Record Critics' Award ("Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik") was established in 1980 to set the "most rigorous standards for supreme achievement and quality" in the field of music recording. The German Record Critics' Award Association consists of up to 145 music critics, writers, musicologists and editors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland actively involved in the assessment of CDs and DVDs. Its mission is to provide producers, composers, artists and music lovers with an honest guide to new releases of true artistic significance.

Vintage music without a hint of Brylcreem, punctilious arrangements with an effervescent sense of swing.
THE SUNDAY TIMES

It's hard to believe at first that there are only four instruments here. The arrangements are so ingenious, and the playing so nimble, that it could be at least twice that number. The style is sophisticated small-band swing, the material a judicious mixture of originals and swing-era numbers and there is not a hint of whiskery nostalgia in any of it. It's about time this idiom received some fresh attention and here's the perfect curtain-raiser.
THE GUARDIAN, Dave Gelly (**** four star review)

There's evidence all the way through this album of clever thought. The foursome's collective swing expertise is a joy to hear.
JAZZWISE, Peter Vacher

The playing on this album is of a very high standard and the 15 tracks cover a lot of ground. So you'll find Bechet, Ellington, and Fats Waller songs here and picks for me include Paolo Conte's perky Azzurro, and an inventive arrangement and performance of Blue Moon and a lovely take on 'Blue River' with the line Dawson sings softly against honky-tonk piano, Catlett-like drums and Benny Carter-like sax 'Do you hold the memory of a vanished dream?' the burning question you imagine all four players want to ask throughout the album.
MARLBANK, Stephen Graham

A wonderful collection, each track is a gem! 'Echoes of Swing' collectively presents an approach like no other quartet, while individually each player is a master.
DICK HYMAN

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