Though widely regarded as one of the top fusion drummers around, the Yorkshire native concentrates on his jazzier side with Gary Husband's Drive on Hotwired, a propulsively swinging quartet outing on which a lot of his most important jazz drum influences emerge, including Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, John Von Ohlen, Jack DeJohnette and Mel Lewis.

"This project was very much born out of the inspiration I derived from a lot of the great American bands that I used to go see at places like Ronnie Scott's club in London. Elvin Jones would bring his band through, as did Art Blakey, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette and both Ralph Peterson, Jr. and Jeff 'Tain' Watts have done the same in recent years. Seeing all of these great bands led by those great drummers always really affected me, so this time I wanted a band for myself that really has a lot of that very hard-hitting, more American-influenced presence to it - that kind of in-your-face, New York style. It's a vibe and attitude in jazz I always particularly loved and I am really enjoying exploring more that kind of approach with this band now."

Along with veteran tenor saxophonist Julian Siegel, bassist Michael Jansich and 23-year-old trumpet sensation Richard Turner, Husband turns in imaginative interpretations of Level 42's 'Heaven in My Hands,' the Duke Ellington's 'Take The Coltrane' inspired 'Take The Coltrane Around' and the Dave Brubeck Quartet jazz anthem 'Take Five.' His potent originals include the powerful Tonyesque opener, 'The Defender', the somber, chamber-like mallets number 'The Agony of Ambiguity', the rolling, Elvinesque mid-tempo swinger 'Deux Deux's Blues', the elegaic piano and sax feature 'One Prayer' and the dramatic 'Angels Over City Square', an expansive work inspired by the evocative Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire that builds to a whirlwind drum solo by Husband. Saxophonist Siegel contributes the intriguing and metrically intricate '10/4'.