Mitch Dalton’s Out of the Shadows unfolds like a quiet reveal, an artist long at the heart of other people’s music finally shaping a world with his own hands, his own warmth, his own sense of swing. It’s the kind of debut that feels lived-in rather than tentative, carried by the ease of musicians who speak the same musical language and enjoy letting ideas drift, spark, and land naturally. With London’s core rhythm section at his side, the SWR Big Band lifting the album’s architecture, percussionist Edwin Bonilla threading sunlight through key moments, and Jazz Morley giving several tracks their human glow, Dalton pieces together a set that feels fluid, rich in detail, and completely unforced.
The album opens with “First Thoughts Are Best,” a conversation disguised as a groove. The brass offers the first thought, the guitar responds, the keys offer another angle, and soon the whole band is trading ideas like a group that trusts the moment. It has a buoyant feel, each section entering with a sense of timing that suggests the piece wrote itself through collective intuition.
“Bird Meets Cat” sketches a scene almost cinematically; a sly bass creeps in first: curious and unhurried followed by bright keyboard flutters that feel like flickers of wings. There’s no danger here, just that delightful push-and-pull energy of two creatures circling each other, much like Tom and Jerry’s dance of mischief. The tune moves with understated humor, light on its feet.
“We Do It” slips into an easy, velvety groove, transformed by Jazz Morley’s soft-glow vocals. Rather than recreating the original spirit, Dalton stretches it into something more relaxed, with spacious phrasing and an airy lift in the final key change. Morley’s improvised lines float upward as if exhaled, giving the track a satisfying final shimmer.
“I Got Room 335” arrives like a familiar melody seen through new weather. Dalton slows down the trademark Larry Carlton fusion pace, letting the tune breathe and unfold with reflective tenderness. With the SWR strings embracing the arrangement, it becomes a spacious, luminous reimagining that sits comfortably between homage and reinvention.
“Besame Mashup” is the album’s sleekest bit of engineering. Tito Puente’s iconic “Oye Como Va” groove melting seamlessly into the romance of “Bésame Mucho.” The percussion pulses with confidence, the flute and trombone carve their own lively arcs, and Morley’s vocal refrain glides through like a ribbon tying two musical histories together.
With “Yeh Yeh,” Dalton and Morley slow down the original’s pace and let its bluesier instincts surface. Morley plays with phrasing, slipping in and out of the beat with mischievous ease while the band moves comfortably beneath her. The result is breezy, flirtatious, and refreshingly unrushed.
“Rio Funk / Night Birds” is woven with extraordinary finesse. Lee Ritenour’s bassline becomes the engine, while Shakatak’s melody floats above it like city lights passing across water. Morley’s whisper-soft delivery turns the vocal line into a night breeze: gentle, airy, and somehow both distant and intimate. The fusion of both tracks feels so natural that it’s easy to forget they began life separately.
“Take The YouTube” grounds the listener again, anchored by a steadfast guitar line that holds the center while the rest of the arrangement circles it patiently. It’s simple in structure yet satisfying in its steady forward pull, almost like cruising with the windows cracked open.
“Freberg’s Folly” brings back the playful spark: jazz fusion and bebop meeting with a wink. Everything about the track carries a light satirical grin: the phrasing, the rhythmic twists, the buoyant interplay. It’s witty without being loud about it, the kind of piece that makes you smile without quite realizing why.
“I Took the Blows” shifts the emotional palette entirely. Borrowing its bones from “My Way,” Dalton flips the narrative toward something more introspective. The reggae-leaning pulse softens the edges, and the slowed tempo invites contemplation rather than triumph. It feels like accepting one’s story rather than announcing it:a gentle and a genuinely deeply human turn.
“No Flippin’” erupts with a march-like entrance before veering into jazz-funk territory. The track captures the restless swing between composure and exasperation, with chromatic lines nudging the tension upward. Its abrupt ending feels like the sonic equivalent of deciding not to overthink something anymore.
The album closes on “Li’l Brian,” which begins with a lullaby-like tenderness: Dalton alone on guitar, offering a kind of quiet reassurance; and as the arrangement widens, a soft theatricality enters the frame, followed by a subtle lift in tempo that feels like returning to hope. The piano solo settles the thought with gentle certainty. It’s a warm, luminous fade-out.
Across Out of the Shadows, Dalton’s great strength is his ability to soften familiar shapes into something smooth, expressive, and renewed without losing their contours. He draws from jazz fusion, blues, American songbook classics, Latin lineage, and bebop tradition, yet everything lands in the same glowing tonal world: comfortable, melodic, and attentive to detail. It’s an album shaped by a lifetime of mastery, yet carried with the ease of someone simply enjoying the music in front of him.
This is a release that steps gently but surely, guiding the listener beyond the shadow and directly into the groove..
