Modern Jacobite by Tommy Smith

Tommy Smith (tenor saxophone)/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBCSSO) conducted by Clark Rundell with orchestrations by Tommy Smith.

Recorded on 28th and 29th May 2015 at City Halls, Glasgow Mixed on 25th and 26th October at Rainbow Studios in Oslo by Tommy Smith and Jan Erik Kongshaug.

Leading European jazz saxophonist, composer and educator Tommy Smith boldly breaks new ground with the BBC/SSO on an exceptional recording featuring his new symphonic work ‘Modern Jacobite’, alongside personal re-imaginings of Rachmaninoff and Chick Corea.

Modern Jacobite represents the first foray into symphonic music for jazz saxophonist Tommy Smith, who has long interleaved orchestral discipline with creative jazz.

The centrepiece of this beautiful recording is Smith’s own evocative painting in music, ‘Modern Jacobite’. Tommy Smith composed this ambitious symphonic work for saxophone and orchestra, and it is deeply imbued with dramatic tension, extraordinary beauty and inflamed passion. ‘Modern Jacobite’ is also musically inventive and finely balanced as an intricate structure, and articulate narrative and an exceptionally visceral piece of music.

The album opens with a shimmering interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise’, in which Smith’s saxophone emotes a range of complex feelings in a devastatingly romantic orchestration. This piece is among the best-loved of the composer’s famous ‘Fourteen Songs’, and Smith brings the subtlest nuances of jazz to bear upon its melodic richness.

The third piece is a portmanteau of compositions ostensibly by Chick Corea, entitled simply, ‘Children’s Songs’. It consists of Corea’s original tunes alternating with Smith’s re-imaginings of Corea’s childhood memoirs. These variations are delivered with improvisational verve and linked by the connective tissue of new music composed by Tommy Smith.

The long journey towards ‘Modern Jacobite’ first began for Tommy Smith in 1989 when he was asked to perform William Sweeney’s concerto for saxophone, An rathad ùr, with the BBC/SSO for the television series Jazz Types.

Smith was immediately prompted by Roger Pollen of the Scottish Ensemble (SE) to spend six months studying orchestration, with a new commission for saxophone and strings very much in mind. As a Blue Note artist at the time, Smith had access to the parent company EMI’s entire classical catalogue and had the pick of CD’s from the London office. He also researched orchestration texts by Samuel Adler, Rimsky Korsakov and Cecil Forsyth, and spent two productive years in Paris where he studied classical music and worked alongside Daniel Humair.

Tommy Smith wrote his first piece of classical music, Unirsi In Matrimonio, for saxophone and strings in 1990. It was met with general critical approval, and praise in particular from respected critic Michael Tumelty who wrote in the Glasgow Herald,“ The movements work as mood pictures, full of atmosphere and outbursts of drama”.

This was quickly followed by Un Ecossais A Paris in 1991, and he later collaborated very closely with eclectic classical pianist Murray McLaughlin for Sonata No.1 - Hall of Mirrors and Sonata No.2 Dreaming with Open Eyes, both for strings and piano. His piano/saxophone duo recordings with McLaughlin of these works moved one writer to observe that they were, “Powerful yet lyrical works…they offer opportunities for improvisation, and Smith employs a jazzman's expressive tone to haunting and thrilling effect." - Inverness Courier, (August 1, 1999)

The next seven years were spent building the forces necessary for a much bigger orchestral work, which came in the form of the saxophone concerto Hiroshima (1998). This was premiered with the Orchestra of St. John Smith's Square at Chelmsford Cathedral and included strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, piano and saxophone.

Tommy Smith also appeared as a solo saxophonist for Sally Beamish's The Knotgrass Elegy, commissioned for the 2001 BBC Proms, and performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Fiona Maddocks writing in the Guardian commented that “The saxophonist Tommy Smith, holding all together with his eloquent wizardry, brought the piece to a wistful close with a forlorn meditation.”

In 2002, Tommy Smith performed his earlier, and much lengthier re-invention of ‘Children’s Songs’ for saxophone and orchestra with the Scottish Ensemble at St John's Kirk, Perth. The Glasgow Herald remarked at the time that, “It transcends technical and stylistic barriers between written and improvised music, resulting in a composition that preserves absolutely the character of the originals”.

Other classical music endeavours have included a massive undertaking for the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra's 40th anniversary in 2003. A very special suite, entitled Edinburgh, was specially written for the occasion and featured saxophone, bass and drums, accompanied by a one hundred-strong symphony orchestra.

Smith also featured as a soloist with the BBC/SSO for the 2012 BBC Proms Last Night Celebrations in Scotland at Glasgow’s City Halls. His contribution alongside pianist Joanna MacGregor and soprano Carolyn Sampson, under the baton of conductor Stephen Bell, marked a memorable final night at the world’s most celebrated classical music festival.

Then, in January 2015, the window of opportunity opened with a suggestion from the BBC/SSO for a remarkable collaboration, which has now resulted in ‘Modern Jacobite’. Following discussions, Smith immediately embarked upon a feverish period of writing and orchestrating that continued unabated until the recording dates in May of that year.

Keen listeners may detect elements of folk melody as one of several points of departure in this dynamic and highly organized symphonic work. Tommy Smith uses every part of the orchestra to tell his story, and colours the work with delicate touches of uncommon instrumentation. His aim was to conceive of something “more organic than a conventional concerto, constructed along loose lines, but still using some notation for necessary coherence.”

The outcome is a high watermark in the accomplished career of one of the UK’s leading jazz musicians. It is also a welcome addition to the growing repertoire of modern musical works that blur distinctions and break down barriers to musical understanding.

By Mike Clark

Born in 1967, Edinburgh. In 1983 Chick Corea recommended Tommy Smith to Gary Burton; he joined his group. Recording over 30 solo albums for Blue Note, Linn, ECM, Spartacus Records, touring 50+ countries, performing with Arild Andersen, Edwin Morgan, John Scofield, Jaco Pastorius, Trilok Gurtu, Dizzy Gillespie. In 2019, he was awarded an OBE for services to jazz from HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

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