Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Michael Garrick Sextet with Norma Winstone: The Heart is a Lotus

226

Michael Garrick Sextet with Norma Winstone: The Heart is a Lotus

By

View read count
Michael Garrick Sextet with Norma Winstone: The Heart is a Lotus
With a resurgence of interest in what many call the "Golden Years of British jazz—the mid-'60s through early '70s—labels like Vocalion are helping to fill in the blanks on the period when a specifically British sound began asserting itself, in contrast to the America-centric music of prior decades. While the music of emergent artists like saxophonist John Surman and trumpeter Ian Carr exhibits clear stylistic precedents from across the pond, there's also something indefinably British there, too—perhaps a hint of pastoral British folk filtered through a touch of impressionist classical sensibility, or perhaps a clear romanticism which was not a major factor in the freer jazz developments in the US at this point in time.

Pianist Michael Garrick was a member of the mid to late-'60s Don Rendell/Ian Carr Quintet, whose albums have been reissued in recent times. These players also participated in an '02 reunion and corresponding album, Reunion. But while Garrick was a key member of that group, he also released a series of his own recordings throughout the same period. The Heart is a Lotus is one of the more distinctive ones, because it expressed his interest in the confluence of words and music. At the time he was an organizer of an ongoing series of performances called "Poetry and Jazz in Concert ; the poetry on The Heart is a Lotus concerns itself, amongst other things, with death and the end of relationships.

Heavy stuff. But while some of the subject matter is dire, the music is anything but. The core group—Garrick on piano and a rather dated-sounding harpsichord; Ian Carr on trumpet and flugelhorn; Art Themen on woodwinds; and Trevor Tomkins on drums—expands to a sextet with the occasional addition of Jim Philip and Don Rendell (woodwinds) and Dave Green or Coleridge Goode (bass). The music ranges from the dark but swinging 11/8 title track to the lyrical ballad "Song by the Sea. With its saxophone/trumpet front line and upbeat hard bop swing, "Torrent sounds like something out of the Art Blakey repertoire, while "Temple Dancer suggests an interest in Middle Eastern music.

But the presence of vocalist Norma Winstone is what gives this session its real distinction. Still in her twenties, Winstone's soft and nimble voice—combined with her ability to navigate challenging melodies with ease and improvise wordlessly in a way that was antithetical to her more outgoing and athletic counterparts in the US—demonstrated a personal approach that was already well-formed at this early stage.

While the lyrical content of The Heart is a Lotus feels dated, the playing on the recording remains remarkably fresh. It's a shame that so many of the British players on the scene never reached acclaim beyond their own country, but hopefully reissues like this one will introduce them to a larger audience that, given the global reach of the internet, will extend beyond geographic borders.

Track Listing

The Heart is a Lotus; Song by the Sea; Torrent; Temple Dancer; Blues on Blues; Voices; Beautiful Thing; Rustat's Grave Song.

Personnel

Art Themen: flute, clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones; Jim Philip: flute, clarinet, tenor saxophone; Don Rendell: flute, soprano and tenor saxophone; Ian Carr: trumpet, flugelhorn; Dave Green: bass; Coleridge Goods: bass; Trevor Tomkins: drums; Michael Garrick: piano, harpsichord; Norma Winstone: voice.

Album information

Title: The Heart is a Lotus | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Vocalion

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.