The most intriguing and worthwhile of his longer
compositions.
Charles
Fox, Jazz
Notes (1976)
New Conditions, Part Four, featuring John Mitchell
(percussion).
Featuring
Harry Beckett
(trumpet and flugelhorn)
Henry Lowther, Pete Duncan (trumpets)
Malcolm Griffiths (trombone)
Art Themen, Alan Wakeman, Mike Page (saxophones)
Ed Speight (guitar)
Roger Dean (piano)
John Webb (drums)
John Mitchell (percussion)
Graham Collier (bass)
Recording
History
First issued on LP
by Mosaic, 1976
First issued on CD by Disconforme, 2001
Remastered and repackaged by
BGO records as part of a 2 CD compilation,
2009
Remastered
by Tom Leader of LCL Digital.
The
Tracks
New Conditions -
Intro, Parts 1-8, Finale.
Chris
Welch’s review of New Conditions in the Melody Maker
made the point that it failed to live up to his
expectations of what a big band record should sound like.
If I’d had the chance I would have sent him Georgia
O’Keefe’s exortation ‘I made you take
time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really
notice my flower you hung all your association with flowers
on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think
and see what you think and see - and I don’t.’
But here is Welch’s comment on the track you can hear
above, a track which, from very simple resources, produced
a stunning piece of music: ‘It sounds like an
elephant tiptoing through a plumber’s bedroom.’
Mildy amusing perhaps, but is this the kind of criticism
that jazz musicians are supposed to happily accept? More on
this in the jazz composer
book,
and on my blog at jazzcontinuum,
Some
(better) reviews
We
are astounded by its vivacity ... we will willingly place
him alongside other great composers such as Hodier,
Russell, Evans and the Jazz Composers'
Orchestra.
Yves
Thebault, Jazz magazine, France (1976)
Nothing
less than a giant step forward for Collier, as he broadened
his palette with the inception of his twelve-piece ensemble
… and devised new methods of integrating composition
and improvisation.
Bill
Shoemaker, Jazz Review
(2001), from which
review the subheading comes.
The
real logic of the piece is a steady journey through a
virtual geography which includes some intriguing ethnic
flourishes towards the titanic climax of what was conceived
and written as a single, coherent work.
The
Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD (2005)
Chosen
as one of the re-releases of 2001 by Bill Shoemaker
in
Jazz Review
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