BARRY GUY - The Blue Shroud
Intakt CD 266 / 2016
Barry Guy: bass, director; Savina Yannatou: voice; Ben Dwyer: guitar; Agusti Fernandez: piano; Maya Homburger: violin; Fanny Paccoud: viola; Percy Pursglove: trumpet; Torben Snekkestad: soprano saxophone, reed trumpet; Michael Niesemann: alto saxophone, oboe; Per Texas Johansson: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Julius Gabriel: baritone saxophone; Michel Godard: tuba, serpent; Lucas Niggli: drums, percussion; Ramon Lopez: drums, percussion.
Given the imminent publication, in the UK, of the report from the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq war, the release of this composition from Barry Guy is very timely indeed. The composition was inspired by the events surrounding US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressing the UN Security Council to seek their support for military action against the Saddam regime. Powell was originally due to speak in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ but the cameramen felt that this was too busy a backdrop and requested that it was covered. A blue UN cloth was hung over the tapestry to make filming easier. However, the symbolism of covering an artwork depicting the horrors of war in order to make it easier to film a statesman seek support for a war is not lost on Guy. The composition uses the words of Irish poet Kerry Hardie (written as a description of, and meditation on, the images in the painting) as its recitative, with Yannatou sometimes speaking and sometimes singing the words. ‘Guernica’ was a small town in Spain that was bombed by Nazi’s at the invitation of General Franco, and Picasso’s painting presents a troubling image of the suffering that this produced. The centre page of the liner notes has a great photograph of the orchestra playing in front of a projection of this painting.
Barry Guy is as well known on the improvised jazz scene as he is in Baroque music circles, with a long and successful career in both camps. The composition bridges these two genres superbly to produce a deeply compelling piece. Throughout the composition echoes of the ‘Agnes Dei’ from Bach’s ‘Mass in B Minor’ appear (with a full rendition of this at the close), together with extracts from Biber’s ‘Mystery Sonata’. These extracts are played as straight classical, orchestral pieces with appropriate instrumentation and no attempt to ‘jazz up’ or interfere with them. Elsewhere, Dwyer’s flamenco guitar playing perfectly mirrors the poem’s themes to create a stirring sense of the fear and unease in Guernica; a sense which is elaborated by the free playing of the orchestra members in other sections (inspired by the superb playing by Fernandez) of the orchestra as the piece develops. The opening ‘Prelude’ showcases Pursglove’s impassioned trumpet voluntary, gradually developing through his drawn out playing (with what sounds like impressive circular breathing in a live recording) into the orchestra creating a stirring, rumbling introduction to the piece. This dissolves into the first of Dwyer’s flamenco pieces, accompanied by Guy playing mournful plucked and bowed bass lines before Yannatou sings the opening lines of the poem. As the piece develops, Yannatou deviates from the poem, either making strangled noises of impotent rage or quietly intoning words like ‘Resolution 1441’, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘human sources’.
While Guy has built his reputation on a wide range of musical styles and his compositions for the London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra are well worth listening to, this piece is far and away his best work. A powerful message and an even more powerful example of integrating a range of musical styles into a seamless whole that gets better with each listen.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Intakt CD 266 / 2016
Barry Guy: bass, director; Savina Yannatou: voice; Ben Dwyer: guitar; Agusti Fernandez: piano; Maya Homburger: violin; Fanny Paccoud: viola; Percy Pursglove: trumpet; Torben Snekkestad: soprano saxophone, reed trumpet; Michael Niesemann: alto saxophone, oboe; Per Texas Johansson: tenor saxophone, clarinet; Julius Gabriel: baritone saxophone; Michel Godard: tuba, serpent; Lucas Niggli: drums, percussion; Ramon Lopez: drums, percussion.
Given the imminent publication, in the UK, of the report from the Chilcott Inquiry into the Iraq war, the release of this composition from Barry Guy is very timely indeed. The composition was inspired by the events surrounding US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressing the UN Security Council to seek their support for military action against the Saddam regime. Powell was originally due to speak in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ but the cameramen felt that this was too busy a backdrop and requested that it was covered. A blue UN cloth was hung over the tapestry to make filming easier. However, the symbolism of covering an artwork depicting the horrors of war in order to make it easier to film a statesman seek support for a war is not lost on Guy. The composition uses the words of Irish poet Kerry Hardie (written as a description of, and meditation on, the images in the painting) as its recitative, with Yannatou sometimes speaking and sometimes singing the words. ‘Guernica’ was a small town in Spain that was bombed by Nazi’s at the invitation of General Franco, and Picasso’s painting presents a troubling image of the suffering that this produced. The centre page of the liner notes has a great photograph of the orchestra playing in front of a projection of this painting.
Barry Guy is as well known on the improvised jazz scene as he is in Baroque music circles, with a long and successful career in both camps. The composition bridges these two genres superbly to produce a deeply compelling piece. Throughout the composition echoes of the ‘Agnes Dei’ from Bach’s ‘Mass in B Minor’ appear (with a full rendition of this at the close), together with extracts from Biber’s ‘Mystery Sonata’. These extracts are played as straight classical, orchestral pieces with appropriate instrumentation and no attempt to ‘jazz up’ or interfere with them. Elsewhere, Dwyer’s flamenco guitar playing perfectly mirrors the poem’s themes to create a stirring sense of the fear and unease in Guernica; a sense which is elaborated by the free playing of the orchestra members in other sections (inspired by the superb playing by Fernandez) of the orchestra as the piece develops. The opening ‘Prelude’ showcases Pursglove’s impassioned trumpet voluntary, gradually developing through his drawn out playing (with what sounds like impressive circular breathing in a live recording) into the orchestra creating a stirring, rumbling introduction to the piece. This dissolves into the first of Dwyer’s flamenco pieces, accompanied by Guy playing mournful plucked and bowed bass lines before Yannatou sings the opening lines of the poem. As the piece develops, Yannatou deviates from the poem, either making strangled noises of impotent rage or quietly intoning words like ‘Resolution 1441’, ‘weapons of mass destruction’, ‘human sources’.
While Guy has built his reputation on a wide range of musical styles and his compositions for the London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra are well worth listening to, this piece is far and away his best work. A powerful message and an even more powerful example of integrating a range of musical styles into a seamless whole that gets better with each listen.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
