French jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling wrote his jazz/Baroque crossover Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano for Jean-Pierre Rampal in 1975. On this CD, James Galway is the star performer and his pianist partner, Jorge Gomez, is a comparable virtuoso. The music itself, if not indelible, is lively, inventive and inhabits an area constantly crossing over between concert music and jazz rhythms, which are at times fairly complex in detail. Of the Suite, the perky opening “Fugace” is the most catchy, wittiest piece, the second number, “Baroque and Blue” makes its contrasts tellingly, and the third, “Irlandaise” is gently folksy. The fourth movement, “Veloce”, is also effective in its sparkling bravura, while elsewhere there are some neat lyrical touches, although James Galway overdoes the vibrato in the closing “Affectueuse”. The other music in the programme – by Jorge Gomez – has stronger Latin-American influences, notably Tica-Tica, but to my ears it is much less appealing. Gomez’s closing “jazz”arrangement of the famous Bach “Badinerie”, not surprisingly, adds nothing worthwhile to the original. In short, although Galway’s flute-playing is delectably spirited throughout, this is not a collection I would wish to return to very often. It is well if forwardly recorded.