New Jazz Orchestra / Neil Ardley Group - BBC Sessions 1968-1970 CD
SKU
28-RHBL3175383.2
“As the sixties turned into the less-beloved seventies, a number of groundbreaking, boundary-stretching big bands could be heard around the UK. There was the Westbrook Concert Band, John Warren’s Big Band, Mike Gibbs Orchestra, the mighty Brotherhood of Breath and, of course, the New Jazz Orchestra led by Neil Ardley.
If performing and recording opportunities might have been limited, the support of BBC radio shows such as Jazz Club, Jazz in Britain and Jazz Workshop were crucial outlets for both musicians and fans. The two sets offered here are evidence both of that embarrassment of riches that was British jazz in those years and the important support given to it by the Beeb.
The first set features the full NJO performing material that was to be released in 1969 as the orchestra’s second LP, Le Déjeuner Sur L’herbe.
The other set, just as precious, presents arrangements by Ardley, Barbara Thompson and Dave Gelly of songs and compositions by pianist Mike Taylor, as well as Ardley’s setting of poems by Yeats, Joyce and Lewis Carroll. Where the NJO set seems to have something of a collegial kind of vibe to it, the sense throughout the second set is of friends making music together, enjoying each other’s company and having a whale of a time doing it. Warmth, imagination and joy in abundance. What more could one ask? Sleeve notes Duncan Heining.”
- LabelRhythm and Blues
- UPC5060331753834