Harry Christelis - Nurture the Child / Challenge the Adult (2023)

Nurture The Child / Challenge The Adult features immersive and thought-provoking original contemporary jazz by a quartet of highly acclaimed musicians, led by guitarist Harry Christelis. It is the quartet’s debut recording and first release for new contemporary music label, Clonmell Jazz Social.

Whilst Harry Christelis (guitar and composition) is the ostensible group leader of the quartet, there is a palpably communal sense about Nurture The Child / Challenge The Adult. This is an album of explorative contemporary jazz, one of deep musical conversation between all the players. Featuring Christos Stylianides (trumpet), Andrea Di Biase (double bass) and Dave Storey (drums), the quartet draws on their divergent experience and pedigree to colour, shape and delineate the soundworlds evoked. The project brings to mind the Fourth Worlds of Jon Hassell, the oceanic exploration of Miles Davis, the deep space of ECM, and the remote, avant-pop lighthouse scan of late Talk Talk. But these are mere comparisons, Nurture The Child / Challenge The Adult draws you into an ecosystem you have never visited before – a place you’d want to spend an hour: comfortably unfamiliar, intimately remote, beguilingly melancholic, and distressingly beautiful.

"Compelling ambient music pitched somewhere between In A Silent Way-era Miles Davis and late-era Talk Talk” - The Guardian

“Music with a serene beauty” - Kevin Le Gendre, BBC Radio 3

“The music’s beauty becomes clearer with every play” - Jazzwise

“Immersive night music, ideal for those sleepless hours; contemplative, thoughtful, and introspective” - UK Vibe