Le Temps Des Cerises [Prélude]
Ana Sefalelku
The Patriot Game
Hasta Siempre Comandante
Hasta Siempre Comandante
La Légende De L'Oiseau
Bella Ciao
N’kosi Sikelel’i Afrika
Nuit Sur Une Place a Helsinki
Jazz De Pékin
Wieder Im Gefängnis
Buenaventura Durruti
Wounded Knee 1890-1973
Le Rêve D'Itxassou
Le Temps Des Cerises [Postlude]
Arranged by Tony Coe
Personnel:
Cello – Jenny Ward Clarke
Conductor – Tony Coe
Double Bass – Chris Laurence
Drums, Bells [Chinese] – Stuart Elliott
Flute, Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone – Ray Warleigh
Guitar – Hugh Burns
Percussion, Vibraphone – Franck Ricotti
Piano – Tony Hymas
Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet, Piano [2nd Piano] – Tony Coe
Trombone – Malcolm Griffiths
Trumpet – Al Downey
Trumpet, Bugle – John Barclay, Stuart Brookes
Viola – Rusen Gunes
Violin – Alexander Balanescu, Lis Perry, Nicholas Ward, Sharon Aslam
Voices; Benat Achiary; Jean-Claude Adelin; Marie Atger; Abed Azrié; Liria Begeja; Maggie Bell; Françoise Fabian; Marianne Faithfull; Violeta Ferrer;
Sandrine Klajic; José Menese; Aura Msimang-Lewis; Ali Farka Touré
Recorded at Lansdowne Studio, London 1989
[64:30]
The reissue of this 1989 album marks a quarter-century since its original release. It’s a protest album, drawing on disparate traditions and musicians to
form a kind of opera based on revolutionary songs. Itxassou, by the way, is a small village in the Basque country, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department
of south-west France.
Arrangements – where they are not his own compositions – are by Tony Coe. And his instrumental cohorts are joined by an array of voices - some of whom will
be familiar, others not - in pursuit of this revolutionary (or agit-prop) agenda. For those indifferent to its theme it can be listened on purely musical
grounds, but it is far more enlightening to engage with the texts, which are all printed in full and in English translation, to savour some or much that
Coe is trying to achieve here.
The opening track brings out the rich orchestral sonorities of which Coe is capable and indeed the elevation of supportive instrumental colour is paramount
here and elsewhere, not least the Eritrean Blues ethos of Ana Sefalelku, where Ali Farka Touré’s instrumental and vocal skills can be enjoyed.The Patriot Game uses the tune of The Merry Month of May, whilst there are two versions of the Revolutionary Latin-American song Hasta siempre, one impassioned, the other more chanson-like and graced by the parlando of Violeta Ferrer. The rhythmically enlivening is
juxtaposed with elements that are more folkloric in this album, and N’kosi Sikelel’i Afrika – which one feared could be taken too raucously – is
instead brassy but more clement with an oddly Edwardian-sounding descant too.
There’s a flamenco spirit to Nuit Sur Une Place a Helsinki and the accordion and Coe’s soprano sax evoke Jazz de Pékin. Marianne
Faithfull is in full Weimar-chanteuse mode for Wieder Im Gefängnis whilst Coe is keen to temper the fervour of the iconic Buenaventura Durruti with quasi-classical elements. Here and elsewhere his handling of orchestral colour is exemplary and he has some first-class
classical and jazz musicians at his disposal. Le temps des cerises sounds rather like Coe had been listening to Mike Westbrook – it has a
Citadel/Room 315 feel to the sound world. This is the swingiest, jazziest and sunniest number – and the one that’s most redolent of Coe’s earlier playing
and writing. It’s also the track I liked best.
This is a very worthwhile restoration. It comes with a good French-English booklet with, as noted before, full texts and translations.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
NATO 1957
