Ivor Cutler, taking a break from his Scottish Sitting Room to read Lear’s Dong with the Luminous nose accompanied by a full jazz orchestra. The marvellous Norma Winstone performing a trio of poems by Yeats, Blake and Lewis Carroll set to lush jazz orchestral arrangements.
These are just two of the pleasures on Neil Ardley and the New Jazz Orchestra’s album, A Symphony of Amaranths from 1971. I’d never heard of the late, great Ardley before Colin wrote a review about the re-release of some of his albums earlier in the week. Read his review and give the albums a listen (on either Spotify or YouTube). Sumptuous, melodic and extremely British jazz.
Among the stellar assortment of musicians playing on these albums are Jack Bruce from Cream and Jon Hiseman of Coliseum, two musicians with a foot in the worlds of both jazz and rock. As pop and rock increased enormously in popularity in the 60s many jazzers realised that there was a good living to be made. Shaving off their goatee beards, discarding their berets and leaving behind the smoky midnight world of the jazz club, they jumped on the new bandwagon. When Miles Davis saw the enormous » Continue Reading.