Artist: Jon Opstad

Date of Release: 01/01/2007

Catalogue no: NCR 1003

Label: New Canvas Records

Price: £9.99

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Track Listing

Appearances by

Justin Quinn, Liam Noble, Nick Smart

Jon Opstad’s second album, Interpretations, was recorded almost three years after his debut, Still Picture, and marks a change in direction from the sense of European lyricism that imbued that project. Interpretations was inspired by the classic work of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock around the late 1960s and early 1970s - on such albums as Shorter’s Schizophrenia, Super Nova, Moto Grosso Feio and Odyssey of Iska and Hancock’s Speak Like a Child, The Prisoner and Mwandishi - and that of a number of other progressive jazz artists recording around this period such as Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner and, of course, Miles Davis. The project is made up of seven compositions directly inspired by this era of jazz. It was recorded in a single afternoon’s recording session at Eastcote Studios, with a seven-piece band made up of some of London’s finest improvising musicians. The resulting music is exciting and richly textured, with highly charged soloing and shifting ensemble colours.

Nick Smart - trumpet, flugehorn
Simon Cosgrove - soprano saxophone
James Allsopp - tenor saxophone, bass clarinet
Liam Noble - piano, fender rhodes
Justin Quinn - electric & acoustic guitars
James Opstad - double bass
Jon Opstad - drums

Reviews

01/02/2007 Chris Parker, Jazz Review

Crooning, closely harmonised horn arrangements, the occasional utilisation of the fender rhodes (impeccably played by Liam Noble, who is characteristically terse and vigorous throughout), shifting rhythms and floating, haunting melodies are the hallmarks of this music, but it is the commitment and skill of the youthful band that really impress... Strongly recommended.