A concept album dedicated to clowning about, jesters down the ages, I kid you not, with a splendid cover picture featuring a ‘finial’, an architectural device, on a fence in the Romanian capital Bucharest. Jester was recorded in Germany by former environmental activist Kell, originally from Massachusetts, who used to play with his much-missed school friend Thomas Chapin. He's on wonderful form here with his regular band, a familiar sight in the New York clubs. While these days the guitarist everybody wants to namedrop is Kurt Rosenwinkel, maybe the next name to be bandied about admiringly will be the alert insightful adopted New Yorker Brad Shepik, whose presence here is a beacon of taste and a source of well-executed ideas. Seven tracks, all written by Kell with Stillman, lightly MBASE-y underpinned by a resourceful Ferber, the players wear their learning lightly but play their hearts out. It all feels like a labour of love: aren't all the best albums?