Mark McKnight  Do Or Die (Whirlwind)

Irish guitarist Mark McKnight is a growing presence on the international jazz scene and this second album will certainly enhance his reputation as a player, band leader and composer. As is quickly apparent on the opening title track, his guitar style combines a singing sound with searching, bluesy energy and a quick-witted sense of form. In the company of a band that takes the classic Hammond organ quartet format into its own zone, he maintains his creative edge across seven compositions, six of them originals surrounding the album’s sole jazz standard, a beautifully realised, contemplative take on Rodgers & Hart’s Bewitched. The tough, brisk Tease finds McKnight and New York-based saxophonist Seamus Blake playing superbly on extended unison phrases reminiscent of Bob Berg and Mike Stern in their late quartet’s pomp, and while organist Ross Stanley and drummer James Maddren play largely supportive roles, they add no little colour and vitality as McKnight and Blake tear up the guitarist’s variously elegant and urgent melodies.

Rob Adams, Scotland Herald

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Mark McKnight: Do or Die ****  Whirlwind Recordings

• IRISH guitarist Mark McKnight is a familiar figure here on the back of appearances in Scotland with his own band and in collaborations with Euan Burton. Indeed, this disc (his second) was recorded in Scotland, and has hard-hitting New York-based saxophonist Seamus Blake on board, along with two talented young players from the London jazz scene, the excellent James Maddren on drums and Ross Stanley on organ. It’s a potent combination, with McKnight’s crisp, inventive guitar work assiduously avoiding clichés, whether on his own up-tempo tunes or in a fresh reworking of the Rodgers and Hart classic Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (just plain Bewitched here), which also features a superb solo from Blake. Stanley and Maddren are highly imaginative as well as supportive, and are always alive to the textural possibilities within the music.
Kenny Mathieson, The Scotsman