Stunning lost scores Legacy Band Abbey Road collaboration marks Kenny Wheeler’s 95th – first single ‘Smatta’ streaming

Transatlantic collaboration

Not long to the release of a remarkable Kenny Wheeler Legacy tribute project that unites musicians from London and Miami recorded at Abbey Road, the London studio complex synonymous with The Beatles.

The first of the tracks from The Lost Scores: Some Days Are Better by the Royal Academy of Music Jazz Orchestra and the University of Miami’s Frost Jazz Orchestra is streaming.

Precious time you don’t measure

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‘Think of when the world was young we waltzed through time as songs were sung’

– Norma Winstone

Nick Smart who is Professor of Jazz at the Royal Academy of Music features in the horn section of the RAM Jazz Orchestra as does in a featured guesting capacity the iconic English free player Evan Parker. 

John Daversa provides a touch of Frost

Joined by the University of Miami’s Frost Jazz Orchestra, made at the famed Abbey Road studios in London’s St John’s Wood, the album features stellar horn power from Chris Potter, Ingrid Jensen, James Copus, Etienne Charles, Brian Lynch and John Daversa who leads the Miami combo and whose own Improvisatory Observatory was released back in the summer.

Album parameters

Album tunes and who solos on them are below.

We have added in a few versions from the past as aides-memoires to whet your appetite beginning with the classic Gnu High piece ‘Smatter’ (listed on the upcoming release as ‘Smatta’ – but never mind the linguistic wrinkle: the clarion motif at the beginning is the same) an album that featured Wheeler with Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette issued by ECM in 1976.

Crate digging

Some Days Are Better tracks and soloists:

• Smatta (Ingrid Jensen and Scottie Thompson)

• Some Days Are Better Suite (Norma Winstone, Evan Parker, Nick Smart, Emma Rawicz, and Niklas Lukassen)

• Dallab (Shelly Berg and James Copus)

• Sweet Yakity Waltz (Chris Potter, Norma Winstone, Donovan Haffner, and Scottie Thompson)

• D.G.S. (Brian Lynch, Eric Law, and Josh Beck)

• Song for Someone (Maria Quintanilla, Joe Evans, and Josh Beck)

• C.P.E.P. (Evan Parker and Sam Keedy)

• Who’s Standing In My Corner (Nick Smart, Donovan Haffner, and Scottie Thompson)

• Introduction To No Particular Song (John Daversa, Niklas Lukassen, and Ananda Brandão)

• Some Doors Are Better Open (Etienne Charles and Emma Rawicz)

• Everybody Knows It (John Daversa, Maria Quintanilla, and Eric Law)

Wheeler died in 2014 at the age of 84. As a composer he first surfaced with the John Dankworth Orchestra of which he was a member with Windmill Tilter released by Fontana in 1969 and remastered in recent years. Later the Canada born Wheeler led his own big band and in 1973 on Song For Someone made his debut as leader.

Smart’s counterpart at Miami University’s Frost School of Music whose musicians contribute is his fellow trumpeter John Daversa who has commented that Wheeler’s ”influence on all of us is undeniable.”

Material interpreted includes scores that were the basis of even now very hard to access BBC broadcasts from the 1970s. And as it is something of an event release only five years ahead of Wheeler’s centenary there’s a 36 page booklet featuring an essay by Smart included in the release packaging.