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- The Gold of the Azure 3.51
- Escape Ladder 8.25
- Siesta 7.01
- The Smile of Flamboyant Wings 3.35
- Vowel Song 6.43
- Constellation : the Morning Star 6.33
- The Calculation 5.07
- Dancer 5.15
- Dialogue of the Insects 5.22
- Blue I, II, III 1.53
All music composed by Tommy Smith & Jon Christensen
Commissioned by The Arts Foundation
Barclays Private Banking Jazz Composition Fellowship
Front illustrationby Joan Miró : L’or de l’azur (1967)
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 1997
reproduced by courtesy of Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona
Total playing time : 53.53
Recorded with Kenny Wheeler, Lars Danielsson and Jon Christensen, three of today’s finest musicians, and inspired by the work of one of this century’s greatest Surrealists and creative spirits – the Catalan painter, graphic artist and sculptor Joan Miro (1893-1983) – Azure offers further compelling evidence of Smith’s growing distinctiveness. From the opening, driving ostinato bars of the title track, where Danielsson’s lovely rounded sound and rhythmic suppleness are immediately evident, to the brief, coda-like meditation that is Blue, the recording projects an intense yet subtly diversified rhythmic vitality. The music is no less distinguished by its distinctly poetic quality. Featuring a range of beautifully weighted contributions from all participants, Azure shapes song and space, mode and mood, tonality and time in ways which make it Smith’s most remarkable – and rewarding – recording to date. Miro would have loved it.
