Tommy Smith - tenor saxophone
Brian Kellock - piano

Without A Song
Cherokee
You've Changed
Don't Blame Me
Moonlight In Vermont
Manhattan
Skylark
Honeysuckle Rose
Pure Imagination
Bernie's Tune
You Must Believe In Spring

Recorded 6 October 2004
Tillie Studios, Scotland

2005 Quotes:
“An engrossing encounter” JAZZ UK (Pete Martin)

“I’ve never heard anything from him quite as mellow as this” TELEGRAPH (Martin Gayford)

**** “Subtly captivating” GUARDIAN (John Fordham)

CD of the week “fascinating” OBSERVER (Dave Gelly)

**** “Charged with musical energy & sensitive emotional expression” SCOTSMAN (Kenny Mathieson)

“Luxuriously rich” RONNIE SCOTT”S MAGAZINE (Chris Parker)

**** “The result is some of both musicians’ loveliest playing”

“A joy from start to finish” SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY (Allison Kerr)

TOMMY SMITH & BRIAN KELLOCK - Symbiosis
(Spartacus)
Cherokee" may have been God's gift to saxophonists, but none have played it as delicately and sensitively as Smith does here. It leads into a series of exquisite ballads, from "Moonlight in Vermont" to "Skylark," each more lovely than the last. And this isn't one of those ballads albums, either. Smith picks up the pace with "Honeysuckle Rose" and reaches into his bebop bag on "Bernie's Tune," where Kellock finally emerges from his supporting role to show you how Bud Powell might have done it. Smith was astonishing back in his teens. Now he's managed to get past that stage and become well-rounded. A

Tommy Smith/ Brian Kellock, Symbiosis (Spartacus)

John Fordham
Friday February 4, 2005 The Guardian
A rematch for the Scottish saxophone-and-piano partnership of Tommy Smith and Brian Kellock, following their fine debut on a standards repertoire with Bezique. Once again, the themes are from the Broadway songbook, and once again the standard of playing and the empathy between these two - who can play anything they can think, and who increasingly think of things other people don't - is subtly captivating.

Smith's beautiful tenor tone on Without a Song is trancelike before the swing cranks up, while the usually headlong Cherokee is taken at a deliberately slow purr. You've Changed makes the tenor sound like Johnny Hodges' fluting alto, and Kellock's crystalline intro to Skylark is briefly exquisite. The wispy epilogue on Michel Legrand's You Must Believe in Spring, meanwhile, turns on the saxophonist's uncanny control of timbre.

Smith is now established as the Jan Garbarek of orthodox jazz, and this scintillating partnership - for those who reach for the off switch when standards surface - represents a respectful and creative definition of what it can still be in the 21st century.