"Kansas Smitty's is the house band at a London jazz bar of the same name. Band and bar are fronted by the American-Italian alto saxophonist, clarinetist and bass clarinetist Giacomo Smith, who with guitarist David Archer wrote most of the material on this album. The band's style embraces swing era Kansas City through to more recent styles and is chamber-jazz of elegance and substance. The group cites Django Reinhardt, Ahmad Jamal, Claude Debussy and Brian Eno as influences, though you would be forgiven for missing the connections. On Things Happened Here, the clearest echo is that of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. This comes in a general sense from the character of the material, Smith's Johnny Hodges-like tone on the alto saxophone and Russell Procope-like tone on the clarinet, and the voicings of a frequently used trumpet, clarinet and tenor saxophone frontline ... Delightful too are the occasional brushes with British composer John Barry's 1960s film soundtracks, the Pat Metheny feel in passages on the title track, and the township jazz resonance in the horns on "Sunnyland""