Down the Canterbury rabbit hole again! Phil Miller was guitarist with Delivery, Hatfield and the North and National Health, where he twanged those strings with beauty and dexterity rarely achieved.
Post National Health, he led his own jazz group In Cahoots, and this 1998 album features that group, with two collaborations with former Hatfield keyboardist Dave Stewart (It's My Party, not Eurythmics)
Bought on Ebay, possibly from USA, in the early 2000s, I haven't listened to this too much, feeling somewhat disappointed at how mainstream jazz it was, compared to the work of these musicians in the 1970s.
Hugh Hopper (Isotope, Soft Machine) does the basswork, Pip Pyle (Gong, Hatfield and National Health) takes his regular place at the drum stool for Miller, while Soft Machine's Elton Dean blows a mean sax, and Pete Lemer (who I hadn't previously heard of) plays keyboards.
It's a nice listen. Nothing too taxing or 'free jazz', but quite accessible, at times toe tapping, stuff, without the solos being too indulgent. The album opens with a long piece Green & Purple Extract / Hic Haec Hoc / A Simple Man, which has sixteen minutes of varied instrumentalism, with the lead switching between guitar, sax and keyboards. Eastern Region is a little more mellow, with Second Sight a little more funky, enjoying some soaring sax solos. The band pieces end with a longer version of opener Green & Purple and a frenzied sax climax.
These pieces bookend two tracks collaborating with Stewart, gentle, and certainly more led by him, with room for some nice guitar work, but to me not as interesting as the four band pieces.
But, as said, it's an enjoyable album, and a fitting representation of Miller's later work. I saw him play a couple of times during the Hatfield and the North reunion in the 2000s, and thoroughly enjoyed those gigs. Phil Miller died in 2017, and is sadly missed.
3* - nothing earth-shattering, but a decent, listenable slice of 1980s British jazz
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