EVERY SECOND
- DERBY JAZZ FESTIVAL JOHN BAILEY “JOSEPH WRIGHT
SUITE” Saturday 29 May 1.00pm
John Bailey - piano | Tom Challenger - saxes and flute
| Romola - clarinet, bass clarinet Nichola
Blakey - viola | Heidi Parsons - cello | Tom Farmer - bass | Jon Scott - drums
Last
year Derby Jazz commissioned pianist/composer John Bailey to write some music
to celebrate the 275th birthday of the painter Joseph Wright of
Derby. John created both a suite of lyrical and evocative music and a new band
to play it. The new band premiered the work, in the company of some of Joseph
Wright’s greatest works at Derby City Art Gallery in September 2009. The music
was terrific, with John and Tom Challenger improvising around a shifting bed of
textures and moods from the strings and rhythm section. The size of the gallery
limited the audience and the quality of the music demanded another
airing. We can’t bring the paintings to the Darwin Suite
but will be projecting images of Joseph Wright’s paintings alongside the music.
John
Bailey grew up in Derby and studied piano as a child, coming to jazz and
joining East Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra in his teens. While successfully
completing a BSc in physics he continued his jazz life as a member of EMYJO and
with a small band “Midnight Blue”, which also included the very young drummer,
Josh Blackmore.
Following
his BSc John went on to gain an MMus in Jazz performance
from the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he met Tom Challenger
(Outhouse and various Loop Collective bands) and Tom Farmer (Empirical).
John’s
dual interests in music and science made him an obvious choice for a commission
celebrating Joseph Wright whose two great “scientific” works "A Philosopher giving a Lecture on the Orrery”1766,
which is in Derby, and its companion piece in London’s National Gallery “An
Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” are among the great treasures of English
painting. To anyone not fully versed in the history of art these paintings
might appear academic but their highly detailed and polished surfaces belie
their radical subject matter and subversive attitudes.
London
Jazz Festival, Bath Jazz Festival and Birmingham Jazz are all considering this
work for their 2010-11 programmes.
