I’m sure I’m not alone in finding that Jazzwise is the most expensive magazine on the racks at Smiths. It’s not the cover price but the collateral damage to your finances whenever you come across an article or a review and think “That sounds interesting. How much is the CD?" My most recent experience of this was reading about Claire Cope in a recent edition and then sending off for this album by Ensemble C for which Cope is the leader, pianist and composer.
And what a storming set it is too. Cope can swing an orchestra in dramatic fashion using the full range of voices available yet still leaving room for some fantastic soloing (Ant Law, I’m looking at you here, though many others are operating at the same level). The brass arrangements are particularly striking. Brigitte Beraha continues her run of never being on an album that is at least very good or better. There are moments of great delicacy and introspection and others of great thigh-slapping joy that power their way out of the speakers. This is rich, dense rewarding music, reminiscent in places of the wonderful work Colin Towns did with the singer Maria Pia De Vito in his Mask Orchestra back in the fag end of the last century.
Cope explains in the liner notes that the album is
inspired, on the one hand, by tales of formidable women who have overcome
prejudice to succeed in their chosen fields and, on the other, by a number of
great musicians (including Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Kenny Wheeler and
Maria Schneider) whom she credits as part of her own musical development. You
can trace the DNA of some of these greats in the music but the album is a bold
statement and stands fully on its own feet.
Every Journey is available HERE through Bandcamp.
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