One of the stronger performances of last year’s London Jazz Festival was by Richard Galliano’s La Strada Quintet dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Nino Rota, an Italian composer closely associated with the fi lms of Fellini. But it’s Rota’s most well known score that sets the ball rolling on this respectful album with a surprising yet perfectly nuanced trombone soliloquy from Galliano, the first instrument he studied. You have to search for the improvisation in terms of real soloing but it is exciting when it happens with the band’s high class frontline of reedsman John Surman and trumpeter Dave Douglas, a great pairing for this project. As with Galliano there is absorption of the simplicity of folk idioms around the world: Galliano: the French musette and of course Astor Piazzolla; Surman’s English classicalfolk infl uences of the rolling hills variety and Douglas’ folky east European inclinations and also his fondness for imaginary film soundtracking, namely with his latest Keystone Project. The rhythm section here is the Russian New York-based bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Clarence Penn of Galliano’s New York Trio. Here there are some classic tunes taken from La Strada, La Dolce Vita and Amarcord among others and some are spun a jazzier adaptation while others stay close to the simplicity of Rota’s yearning melodies. The oneman orchestral virtuoso Galliano on the accordion is here too but sparingly. The band plays with a passion that stems also from a confidence that these are some of the most memorable themes in film music.