Recently selected as one of the 1001 best albums in
The
Penguin Jazz Guide - The History of the Music in the 1001
Best Albums (2010)
‘One
of the remarkable things about
Hoarded Dreams,
and perhaps only equalled by Charles Mingus, is the
seamlessness of written material and improvisation.
… Without an overt political or social programme, it
still delivers an expression of togetherness and
individuality in balance that is hard to beat. …
Collier’s dream-hoard is rich, sometimes strange and
entirely free of British whimsy. A lastingly satisfying
experience.’
From
The Penguin
Jazz Guide
Marvellous
and quite indispensable …
70
minutes of glorious music …
Rambunctious rhythms and spontaneous tumult suggestive of
Mingus …
There is nothing in this staggering performance that sounds
remotely dated or unadventurous …
for once you finish listening to a 70-minute recording and
wish there was more …
one of the most invigorating big band releases I’ve
heard in quite some time.
Some quotes from
the worldwide reviews for the release of Hoarded Dreams, 24
years after it was recorded.
Hoarded Dreams opening.
Hoarded
Dreams is among the 200 in the Penguin Guide to Recorded
Jazz ‘Core Collection:
a basic library of jazz records which readers… might
consider as their first-priority purchases.’
Commissioned by the 1983 Bracknell
Jazz Festival and performed there by an all-star
International 20 piece band conducted by Graham Collier.
The performance was filmed by Channel 4, as the core of a
documentary about Graham, and also recorded by the BBC for
later transmission.
Featuring
Geoff Warren;
Juhanni Aaltonen; Art Themen; Matthias Schubert; John
Surman (saxophones)
Kenny Wheeler, Henry Lowther, Manfred Schoof, Tomasz
Stanko, Ted Curson (trumpet, flugelhorn)
Malcolm Griffiths, Eje Thelin, Conny Bauer (trombone)
Dave Powell (tuba)
John Schröder, Ed Speight (guitar)
Roger Dean (piano)
Paul Bridge (bass)
Ashley Brown (drums, percussion)
Recording
History
Recorded live at
The Bracknell Jazz Festival, 1983
First
Issued on Cuneiform Records, 2007
Mixed and mastered
by Tom Leader of LCL Digital
The Tracks
Hoarded Dreams,
Parts One to Seven
70 minutes of dazzling solos and exchanges, what really could be described as musical fireworks.
Charles Fox, The New Statesman.
You couldn’t tell where improvisation ended and
writing took over… The whole conception was bold and
the playing magnificent.
Dave
Gelly, The
Observer.
This
was something special in jazz writing; something that was
reflected in the inspiration which the piece gave to the
soloists. Roger
Cotterrell, The
Wire.
The extracts above are from reviews of the first
performance in 1983.
Those below come from the unprecedented set of reviews of
the Cuneiform release.
What
a monumental piece of music... how many other jazz
composers could produce something of such epic proportions
where both composition and improvisation combine to such
powerful effect. It's impossible to say where the writing
begins and ends and improvisation takes over. But that is
essentially Collier's project - the composition continues
to develop in the performance and the improvisers create
the writing anew every time they play. Expect raucously
abstract playing, lyrical and melodic tune-led sections,
driving rhythms, mighty cadenzas and brooding moments of
transcendence. You won't be disappointed.’
Duncan
Heining, Jazzwise
Magazine, February
2007
Why
a musician of Graham Collier’s stature is not more
well known in the states, after all this time and with such
credentials, is beyond me … [He is] a composer of
large-scale works demonstrating complete mastery …
‘all [the fantastic solos] exist in the well-defined
framework only a veteran composer can establish …
one of the most invigorating big band releases I’ve
heard in quite some time.
Marc Medwin,
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/3482
Hoarded
Dreams just might be a touchstone for Graham Collier's
music, more specifically the inventions for large ensembles
that he's been fashioning for the last thirty-odd years
… the intimate nature of the relationship between
Collier the composer and the musicians is a thing of wonder
… [his] dark, brooding writing for the horns creates
the impression of something pretty close to unique within
big band music.
Nic Jones,
All About
Jazz
Seventy
minutes of consistently exciting, at times downright
exhilarating, music, containing just enough structural
backbone to ensure artistic coherence, but sufficiently
imbued with that most elusive of qualities, freedom, to
guarantee unpredictability … Unreservedly
recommended.
Chris
Parker, http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/cd-reviews/hoarded-dreams.html
The
precise personnel is important because what made Hoarded
Dreams different from the run of big-band projects was that
Collier marshalled his essentially simple material in such
a way as to foreground each and every member of the
orchestra as a soloist. It's a luminous performance, on a
par – for me, at least – with any of
Ellington's late suites.
Brian
Morton, The
Wire
Collier’s
compositional style is pan-tonal and pan-stylistic. He [is]
a master of rambunctious rhythms and spontaneous tumult
suggestive of Mingus. When this work turns somber,
it’s with elegiac force and striking voicings. Lately
Collier has been getting more of the broader international
attention his work warrants.
Stuart
Broomer, Signal to
Noise
For
us, the listeners, there’s the certainty that - after
24 more years of innovation and the input of another
talented generation - there is nothing in this staggering
performance that sounds remotely dated or unadventurous....
Anthony Troon, Jazz
Review
70
minutes of glorious music.
Jazz
Up Late, ABC,
Australia, who broadcast the CD in its entirety soon after
its release.
Graham
Collier is a true forgotten master... for once you finish
listening to a 70-minute recording and wish there was
more.... Collier is masterful at creating music which is
composed and tightly organized but also energizes
improvisation... If you are an admirer of the exploratory
big band, if you dig Mingus’ Epitaph work, if you are
always searching out a new ICP or VAO, then you must find
and hear Hoarded Dreams.
Phillip McNally.
©Cadence Magazine 2007 www.cadencebuilding.com
Great
music stands the test of time. Composer/arranger/bandleader
Graham Collier proves that once again with the release of
Hoarded Dreams. ... Marvelous and quite indispensable.
Jerry
D'Souza, All About Jazz
Collier
is in a league with George Russell and Charles Mingus in
the demanding discipline of writing for large ensembles
populated by musicians whose improvisation goes beyond the
fringe of standard harmony.
Doug Ramsey, Rifftides
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