This remarkable live concert with Chris Cheek, Matt Penman and Roberto Dani, under the innovative leadership and compositional resource of pianist Mika Pohjola, was recorded under catastrophic circumstances. The recording engineer forgot to include the bass track into the final mix. The multitrack tapes were lost less than a year later. However, with modern technology, this important document has been successfully restored and the quality of the music can now be enjoyed by those who weren't present at this electric occasion. This festival concert from Spring 1998 includes some of the most original and influential new jazz directions of the early 21st century. This is ear-pleasing repertoire which the remarkable and short-lived quartet performed during its tours and in many New York clubs in its most active years 1996-99. English Breakfast was captured at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on a tour of the U.K. and Scandinavia. The quartet concluded the tour by recording its most successful studio album, Announcement. This is exhilarating new music and features an uncanny degree of communication.
- Alyn Shipton, The Times