If you believe critics are just frustrated musicians, this new recording by Financial Times jazz correspondent Mike Hobart might cause you to think again. As a reviewer he sets high standards, and as a saxophonist-composer he would seem to apply the same ones to his Urban Jazz Collective. OK, not the most inspiring choice of band name perhaps, but it's at least a pretty good description of how his quintet sound; reflecting the classic Blue Note phases of earthy jazz modernism but from a perspective that's far more contemporary than retro. The Third Fish is both entertaining and stimulating, not words that go together as often as they should in jazz today. Hobart wears his influences on his sleeve, but artfully. Aside from a few band originals, the line-up of musicians from diverse backgrounds (trumpeter Chris Lee is an ex-member of 1980s band Pigbag, while Boukie the Jamaican drummer, plays dance music as well as jazz), take on the Ray Charles sax-sideman David Newman's soul-jazzy ‘Fathead’, Ellington's ‘In a Sentimental Mood’, Miles’ ‘Nardis’ and Monk's ‘Thelonious’. They are ‘tributes’ though that don't descend into imitation: the Monk is a Marcus Millertype groover and the version of ‘Nardis’ first hints at the later 1969 milestone, In a Silent Way, while the addition of Sun Ra-esque lazer-gun synth effects put it through a more futuristic lens until the theme enters over a nicely weighted hip hop-driven backbeat that kicks it into the present day. Originals ‘The Vista’ has a feel of late-1960s spiritual jazz, while ‘The Deep End’ is a Horace Silver-like, gospel-tinged jazz noir. Hobart's sax playing is somewhere between Archie Shepp-ish cosmic free-jazz, breathily conversational soliloquies and a non-showy, soulful brand of R&B-jazz (he has experience as a sideman with Maceo Parker and Esther Phillips). The negotiation between contemporary and traditional feels just right.