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OUT OF THE DARKNESS
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SLAMCD264
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Cornucopia Ensemble: Rita Manning, violin/leader; Emlyn Singleton, violin; Andy Parker, viola; Nick Cooper, cello; Bruce Nockles, trumpet; Melinda Maxwell, oboe; David Purser, trombone; John Orford, bassoon.
Featured soloists: Andy Sheppard, tenor and soprano saxophones; John Law, piano, director, composer; Chris Laurence, double bass; Paul Clarvis, drums, percussion.
Recorded live in concert at CBSO Hall, Birmingham, 17 October 2004.
"A rich and completely distinctive contemporary music programme." John Fordham The Guardian.
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Out Of The Darkness
John Law The Cornucopia Ensemble
Artists
featured soloists: Andy Sheppard, tenor and soprano saxophones; John Law, piano, director, composer; Chris Laurence, double bass; Paul Clarvis, drums, percussion;
Cornucopia Ensemble: Rita Manning, violin/leader; Emlyn Singleton, violin; Andy Parker, viola; Nick Cooper, cello; Bruce Nockles, trumpet; Melinda Maxwell, oboe; David Purser, trombone; John Orford, bassoon
Dave Purser, Tibetan Horn on track 8 (Talitha Cumi)
All compositions: John Law (PRS/MCPS)
Out Of The Darkness total length: 46:08 (subtitled for Melanie Day) 1. Part 1 (subtitled Exposition - Canons) length: 11:23 2. Part 2 (subtitled Development) length: 4:43 3. Part 3 (subtitled Chaconne) length: 6:41 4. Part 4 (subtitled Slow Movement) length: 6:27 5. Part 5 (subtitled Ensemble) length: 3:47 6. Part 6 (subtitled Fast Movement - Rondo) length: 10:28 7. Part 7 (subtitled Coda) length: 2:39
8. Talitha Cumi length: 14:40
9. Nocturne length: 11:56
10. The Loop length: 6:17 (subtitled for François Corneloup)
Recorded 17.10.04, live in concert, at CBSO Hall, Birmingham Engineer: Paul Sparrow
John Fordham Friday August 4, 2006 The Guardian
UK pianist/composer John Law has already put out one album this year (the freewheeling Monk 'n' Junk); it's a front-runner among the top 2006 British jazz releases. Now comes another contender, this time in the jazz/contemporary-classical crossover league. Law is one of the most sophisticated and accomplished cross-border musicians around, as he showed on the 2004 Arts Council tour from which these tracks are taken.
Cornucopia joins a jazz quartet (Law, saxophonist Andy Sheppard, bassist Chris Laurence and drummer Paul Clarvis) to an eight-piece classical group. The title piece is a seven-part, 45-minute suite, beginning in a darkly Shostakovich-like mood in which brooding strings are illuminated by brass flares, and then the shock of a gritty Sheppard free-jazz tenor eruption. Baroque symmetries turn into loosely swinging improv, while bassoon figures overlaid by string motifs have their melody lines abruptly turned Monkish - as on the uptempo Ensemble. Nocturne is a soprano-sax meditation over pulsating strings, and The Loop is a brilliant, many-layered groover.
Jazz Review Aug/September 2006
Like the Hound of the Baskervilles, many British jazz composers have fallen foul of the curse of the Arts Council suite. But John Law largely avoids this pitfall by composing material that’s got worth in its own right, rather than be too concerned with idiom or clumsily constructed musical narratives. Sleevenote annotator Jon Lloyd suggests Mark-Anthony Turnage and Krysztof Penderecki as useful models for a composer wanting to incorporate improvising musicians within composed music. Of course he’s wrong – both Turnage and Penderecki have proved themselves cherry-picking tourists in their use of jazz musicians, whereas Law has paid his dues and the difference is palpable.
The eight-piece Cornucopia Ensemble consists of musicians associated with the London Sinfonietta like Melinda Maxwell (oboe), David Purser (trombone) and John Orford (bassoon), and because Law doesn’t expect them to behave like jazzers, everyone is playing to their strengths. Low register string writing in the opening section, "Exposition – Canons", twists and turns like the beginning of Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste and accrues considerable steam. A quick burst from the jazz quartet establishes their existence and Law sets up his 45-minute piece expertly. The middle section "Chaconne" is a delight, with plenty of room for solos, and only the climactic "Rondo" perhaps wanders too far towards big-band protocol.
Paul Clarvis and Chris Laurence are old dependables, and Laurence turns his many solo spots into something magical. Sometimes Andy Sheppard sounds like he’s carrying too much over from his own projects without fully integrating into Law’s intentions, but the quartet largely sound like they’re having fun. Three smaller pieces provide a good balance to the ambitious opener, and Law succeeds where many others have failed.
Philip Clark
John Law Cornucopia Ensemble Out of the Darkness SLAMCD 264
Recorded at the CBSO Hall in Birmingham, 17 October 2004, this album features pianist/composer John Law with the Cornucopia Ensemble (an octet: two violins, viola, cello, trumpet, oboe, trombone and bassoon), Andy Sheppard on tenor and soprano, bassist Chris Laurence and percussionist Paul Clarvis. The first section is devoted to an eponymous suite, which begins, appropriately enough, as a murky ensemble swirl that gradually coalesces into form and regular movement, Sheppard alternately roaring (tenor) and piping/wafting (soprano) over a supremely sensitive jazz rhythm section and the multi-textured contributions of the Ensemble. As saxophonist Jon Lloyd points out in his excellent liner-notes, Law ‘is comfortable with the full weight of classical history and […] at similar ease with the rhythms and harmonies from world musics, the shifting styles of jazz and earlier, pre-classical religious music’, and all these sources are beautifully balanced, both in the 46-minute, seven-part piece that forms the bulk of the album, and in the three shorter compositions that succeed it: ‘Talitha Cumi’ (a delicate, lilting melody featuring Sheppard’s soprano juxtaposing sweetly agile time-playing with a circular-breathing free passage), the mesmerisingly attractive ‘Nocturne’ (written for the 1914 silent film South), and the jaunty closer ‘The Loop’, dedicated to French reeds player François Courneloup. Achieving a natural-sounding synthesis rather than an awkward ‘bolted-on’ effect with the forces at his disposal must have presented a considerable challenge, but John Law has succeeded triumphantly, and the album provides an object lesson in the deployment of elements too often considered incompatible. Recommended.
Chris Parker, Vortex
Downtown Music Gallery
NEWSLETTER - May 26th, 2006
JOHN LAW CORNUCOPIA ENSEMBLE - Out Of The Darkness (Slam 264; UK) Featuring Mr. Law's fabulous quartet with John on piano & compositions, Andy Sheppard on tenor & soprano saxes, Chris Laurence on double bass and Paul Clarvis on drums plus the Cornucopia Ensemble which includes a string quartet plus trumpet, trombone, oboe & bassoon. This gem was recorded live at the CBSO Hall in Birmingham, UK in October of 2004. John Law remains one of the under-recognized giants of British modern jazz/new music piano, as all of his dozen solos, duos, trios and quartet discs (FMR, Hat & Slam) can attest to. This is his first disc for a larger ensemble, his regular quartet plus an octet and it is a marvelous effort. The title piece is an epic-length work (46 minutes) and evolves through seven sections. The octet plays haunting harmonies that move back and forth in waves, as the quartet rise powerfully above, first with Andy's tenor and Paul's drums, then veteran bassist Chris Laurence (who is marvelous throughout), begins weaving as well. The quartet and octet swirl mysteriously together, with John's thoughtful writing holding it all together. There are a number of inspired solos from different players throughout this long eventful work, trumpeter Bruce Nockles, Andy Sheppard's saxes and John Law's great piano. Mr. Law's composing and direction has evolved and matured with grace and immense creativity. The entire 12-piece ensemble is so well-integrated, that they sound like they've been playing together for many years. I am reminded at times of the Neil Ardley, the legendary British jazz and classical music composer and conductor
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