WHEELER’S SUITE ENDURES
Prolific Hard Rubber Orchestra continues to have the right bounce with its fans
Vancouver’s Hard Rubber Orchestra was formed in 1990 by composer/trumpeter John Korsrud to play new music from, largely, Canadian composers. Winners of the Alcan Arts Award for creation — the largest prize of its kind in the country — the 18-piece ensemble has never failed to pursue its mandate, premiering 50-plus new works in the past few decades.
Composer/trumpeter Kenny Wheeler was a big influence on jazz and new music in Canada and was commissioned to write this piece in 2013 by orchestra director Korsrud on the recommendation of pianist/trombonist Hugh Fraser.
It had its debut performance at SFU on Oct. 19, 2013. Wheeler died the following year. Here are five things to know about this recording:
1
Norma Winstone
Acclaimed British vocalist Winstone was a longtime friend and collaborator of Wheeler’s and gets some fair working out in the late composer’s score. Wheeler liked to pair the voice against the trumpet almost like a backing string section. Winstone is great at this kind of atmospheric vocalizing.
2
Movement/Improvisation
The suite has five movements broken up by three improvisations. With the exception of the fabulous interplay between trumpeter Brad Turner and pianist Chris Gestrin on Improvisation II (3:25 minutes), the improvs tend to be under two minutes and you wish they were longer. Wheeler’s suite is characterized by fitting a lot of ideas and playing into quite tight frameworks.
3
Mike Herriott
No group as large as the Hard Rubber Orchestra can give everyone
a spotlight moment and it’s natural that a trumpeter such as Wheeler would write really nice parts for the brass players. He did and trumpeter Mike Herriott shines brightly in the soaring solo breaks in Movement II and Movement V. Guitarist Ron Samworth also lays down some very tasty, understated soloing in Movement II.
4
Production
Big band recordings can be very difficult to capture well. Kudos for recording engineer Eric Mosher for grabbing the group in all its big sound and not having it come out like so many of Wheeler’s own recordings did. Yes, he was known for his atmospheric playing, but it’s nice to hear his ideas more clearly expressed. The man really had a beautiful way with building moods and melodies.
5 Hard Rubber Orchestra
Follow this amazing unit at hardrubber.com to keep advised of the group’s occasional performances. It takes a lot of work to get this big a group together to play and the shows are typically specific launch or conceptual performances.
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