Review of the phenomenal British composer Neil Ardley

 

Neil Ardley made the three masterpieces: Symphony of Amaranths, Kaleidoscope of Rainbows, and Harmony of the Spheres in the seventies as a sort of trilogy, but in the earlier days the library records: Greek Variations, which I found quite disappointing, Mediterranean Intrigue (KPM), which I found very disappointing (partly because it recycled most of the ideas of the former), and Will Power the tribute to Shakespeare which I found profoundly depressing (because I love Shakespeare and hold him as the greatest writer ever), and with the New Jazz Orchestra/Mike Gibbs, the brilliant Dejeuner sur l'herbe and the 1971 Radio Live recent CD release.

So Symphony of Amaranths (1972) is the most hesitant, which makes sense since it followed closely on the heels of the 'Third Stream' jazz movement (melding classical with jazz, but not rock) with a first part that forms a kind of 20-minute long composition ending in a long and rather unnecessary set of improvisations, the second side consisting of some really odd songs and a spoken poem over composed instrumental music (The Dong with the Luminous Nose).  I don't feel much of this is entirely successful, if at all.  And I could easily understand if the average listener, the average human, laughed in disgust if I were to be brave enough to play it for their enjoyment with a straight face stating it's a masterpiece.  We could be quite amused too by the choice of emoticons the 'millenial' person would come up with, especially since with my bad eyesight and lack of understanding of this mystifying new hieroglyphic I would be completely left in the dark with regards to the meaning-- especially if one of those neologistic acronyms like WAKSKIG was added in.  Like, to the Ardley music.  Wait-- whaaaat???

Anyways, by the Kaleidoscope of Rainbows (1976) the maturation of his composition is obvious and we have a really beautiful and total all-encompassing suite of symphonic melded with jazz, actually fusion since the 'rock basis' is now in place, just about perfectly, that flows very beautifully without dropping in interest and based on a wonderful octave-reaching melodic theme that is repeated throughout in different variations.  (That theme had appeared before in an earlier album btw I subsequently noticed.)

On Rainbow 5, you get a good taste of his style which usually but not always involves rapid percussion at an almost max heartrate overlaid with funky guitar chords, piano, and a long drawn-out melody in the horns for contrast, usually with many sustained chords or notes, giving that feeling of rushing through and observing slowly both at the same time:

In the same way the last album again forged a gorgeous symphony of classical jazz-rock with all the excitement of drums, guitars, electric piano, added to a full-on orchestra.  Here like in the style of easy listening the orchestra and particularly the strings never get dumb in the usual 'normal' classical manner, partly due to the way the orchestra (the individual instruments) was recorded.  On Fair Mirage, the composition is just other-worldly, although notice how similar the style is to the previous work (strong driving percussion, sustained melodies with long notes):

The commenter asked me about some of my favourite fusion albums, this trilogy would be one of the top ten, well, maybe too generous, top twenty.  Or fifty.  At least, from Britain.  Just kidding.

Now imagine my shock when I read his bio:

English jazz pianist and composer, and author, born 26 May 1937 in Wallington, Surrey, England, UK, died 23 February 2004 in London, England, UK (aged 66).

As well as being an influential jazz musician and composer, he also made a name as the author of more than 100 popular books on science and technology, and on music. When he retired in 2000 Ardley had written 101 books, with total sales of about 10 million.