Artist: Nigel Waddington

Date of Release: 16/10/2010

Catalogue no: CACD77011

Label: Cala

Price: £10.95

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Track Listing

Reviews

04/01/2011 Musicweb International

One of Waddington's strengths is as a colourist. So "I Fly" is a case in point. Woodwind statements of fine texture give way to Claire Martin's smoky vocal chorus, the two things very adeptly balanced. The ability to marry intimacy and broader sonorities recurs throughout. The title track features swirling strings, fine reed work and an especially apt solo from guitarist Dave Ital. One of the marks of a good arranger is that one revisits tracks and finds more and more in them; colours, textures, harmonies, patterns. That happens here. Versatility, and the ability to formulate sensitive arrangements, is a gift.
Jonathan Woolf

01/01/2011 Mark Gilbert, Jazz Journal

Captivating new big band recording...appealingly varied repertoire...Vince Mendoza-like charts such as the beautifully melodic title track. Despite the diversity everything coheres and unfolds in an organic and compelling manner. Soloists and singers are woven seamlessly into the undulating fabric of the orchestrations. Claire Martin's metre-bending swing on Like Someone in Love [is] something only possible of course in the most sympathetic of environments. An outstanding achievement...a masterpiece in its own right.

18/12/2010 UK Jazz Radio

The album ranges beautifully across a wide range of orchestral jazz styles with soaring horn and string arrangements and top soloists...uplifting stuff...acres of superb quality that includes a big-band take on Pat Metheny’s James and an idiomatic tribute to Steely Dan with Jacqui Hicks. But here’s Nigel’s string writing at its best, in a setting for Claire Martin on Nick Homes’s tune I Fly

28/10/2010 Bill Buckley, Soul, Jazz and Funk

'Jazz Chops, No Hang Ups' melody, arrangement and changes are very, very Fagen/Becker-esque... even John Blackwell gets the tone of his guitar just right... Then there's the key-note title cut. Using reeds, strings, xylophone and harp Waddington explores Johnny Dankworth's observation about jazz being a language not a style and in attempting such he's achieved a very British sound on the cut... and indeed throughout the album.

02/10/2010 Mike Gibbs

Bigger Pictures:
Here's some captivating new bigband / orchestral music, arranged and crafted - and mostly composed - by the exquisite and finely-honed pen 'n ear of Nigel Waddington --- Where Has He Been? If in the woodshed as I surmise, then its surely time he was out and about...at last! With a line up of luminaries from the British music scene - jazz and otherwise - the ensemble playing and soloing are expectedly exemplary. And as hoped for, there's that magical blend, natural and seemingly effortless, that comes with music and players being in compatible territory, and having a ball - the music playing itself. This is a kaleidoscopic collection of contemporary jazz - hard swing, earthy and soulful vocal and instrumental ballads, funky rhythms, excursions into the classical, that'll beguile, cajole and engage you. Several times, it caught me saying "Hey! come again - what was that?" Too late though, its moving on to more ear-catching goodies - you gotta keep up!