Salute to the Sun (Gondwana Records)
Matthew Halsall
Released November 2020
JAZZ FM Album of The Year Nominee 2021
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kjsqHppgKtuTZ1NkRDtGdWQmM925spwGc
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/7KL9LRIsBoto6VAfcQjM0D?si=XRLX3JDeQ6KHIpx1YlTe5w
About:
Composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, Matthew Halsall has always worn many hats. But at the heart of everything that he does Halsall is first and foremost an artist and a musician. A trumpeter whose unflashy, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own. A music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations.
Salute to the Sun is his first album as a leader since Into Forever (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester’s finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall’s bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years (on albums such as Oneness, Fletcher Moss Park and When the World Was One) ideas of ecology, the environment and harmony with nature.
“I feel Salute to the Sun is a positive earthy album. I wanted to create something playful but also quite primitive, earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. I was listening to lush ambient field recordings of tropical environments such as jungles and rainforests and found myself drawn to percussive atmospheric sounds which replicated what I was hearing (bells / shakers / chimes / rain sticks) and I started to experiment with more wooden percussive instruments such as kalimba and marimba”.
Salute to the Sun features lush wholly improvised tunes inspired by ambient rainforest and jungle field recordings, deeply soulful tunes built around hypnotic harp and kalimba patterns, deep Strata-East inspired spiritual jazz grooves and some of Halsall’s most beautiful playing and inspiring healing melodies yet recorded.
The album was recorded at the band’s weekly sessions, using Halsall’s own recording set-up, giving the recordings a relaxed vibe and unforced energy that really lets the music breath. The album is also very much a family affair as Halsall’s brother Daniel Halsall, artistic director of Gondwana Records, was an important presence at the sessions and co-produced the album. It is also his memorable artwork that adorns the cover of Salute to the Sun, an album beautifully designed by legendary designer Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, who also created the covers for the recent archival releases Oneness, Sending My Love and Colour Yes and is one of Halsall’s favourite designers. Together Daniel Halsall and Ian Anderson have designed all of Matthew’s seven albums to date, so it felt extra-special to bring them together for, Salute to the Sun, an album that Halsall was determined to present in the very best way possible. The album was mixed with another long-time collaborator, George Atkins at 80 Hertz in Manchester, who works tirelessly with Halsall to perfect the sound and was mastered by noted engineer Peter Beckmann who brings an added depth to the sound specially around the bass notes as well as Halsall’s trumpet. The magnificent double vinyl was cut as a Half Speed master by Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering for the best possible analogue experience.
The result is arguably Halsall’s most beautiful and complete recording to date, playful, charming and imbued with the warmth of the sun and the energy of life.
Track Listing:
1. Harmony with Nature (Alan Taylor / Gavin Barras / Jack McCarthy / Liviu Gheorghe / Maddie Herbert / Matt Cliffe / Matthew Halsall) 09:11
2. Joyful Spirits of the Universe (Matthew Halsall) 10:40
3. Canopy & Stars (Matthew Halsall) 07:51
4. Mindfulness Meditations (Alan Taylor / Gavin Barras / Jack McCarthy / Liviu Gheorghe / Maddie Herbert / Matt Cliffe / Matthew Halsall) 02:49
5. Tropical Landscapes (Matthew Halsall) 08:27
6. Salute to the Sun (Matthew Halsall) 11:01
7. The Energy of Life (Matthew Halsall) 07:19
Personnel:
Matthew Halsall: trumpet
Matt Cliffe: flute, tenor and soprano saxophones
Maddie Herbert: harp
Gavin Barras: bass
Alan Taylor: drums
Jack McCarthy: percussion
Liviu Gheorghe: piano, kalimba, marimba (1, 2, 4 to 7)
Tom Harris: kalimba (3)
Recorded July – December 2019, at Gondwana Records Studios, Manchester, UK, by Matthew Halsall
Mixed by George Atkins & Matthew Halsall
Mastered by Peter Beckmann
Lacquer Cut by Barry Grint
Art Direction: The Designers Republic
Original Cover Image by Daniel Halsall
Produced by Daniel Halsall & Matthew Halsall
Review:
Trumpeter and composer Matthew Halsall is
an inspirational figure on the British scene, as a musician and as the founder
of the successful Gondwana Records label. Based in the northern city of
Manchester, two hundred miles and a lifestyle away from London, Halsall debuted
in 2008 with Sending My Love, on which he unveiled his distinctive
spiritual-jazz take on the less-is-more modalism and lustrous sound of Miles
Davis circa Kind Of Blue (Columbia, 1959). Since then, Halsall’s
bands have accelerated the emergence of some of the north of England’s most
striking musicians, including reed players Nat Birchall and Chip
Wickham, pianist Adam Fairhall and harpist Rachael Gladwin.
With Salute To The Sun, Halsall’s first album of newly recorded material
since 2015’s Into Forever, everything has changed and nothing has changed.
His muscular young band is completely new aside from bassist Gavin Barras,
who has both anchored and elevated the music since Sending My Love. The
music itself, however, is as resplendently the same as ever, following the path
first set out by Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. Its
signatures are a celestial vibe, melodicism and well-tempered grooves (in its
way, the Gondwana aesthetic resembles that of Creed Taylor’s CTI label,
with whom it shares its high production values). New harpist Maddie
Herbert fits seamlessly into the slot left by Gladwin and the gutsy
saxophonist and flautist Matt Cliff brings Sanders’ broken-note strewn tenor
and Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s pizzicato flute to the party along with himself.
The most significant tweak to the studio sound is the foregrounded use of tuned
percussion such as the kalimba and marimba. The album is balm for the soul.
A final thought. Salute To The Sun comes from a similar place as
another trumpet led, premier league, 2020 British album, Laura Jurd’s band
Dinosaur’s To The Earth (Edition). Both are playful, essentially
acoustic and were conceived with environmental concerns in mind. If you enjoy
one of them, you will almost certainly enjoy the other one, too.
Chris May (All About Jazz)
