TO M M Y S M I T H

MODER O

JAC O BI TD

THE B B C SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

VOCALISE

Rachmaninoff 5.59

i. Opus 34, No.14

JACOBITD

Smith 29.57

ii. 1689 iii. 1715 iv. 1745

CHILDRENS SONGL
vi. Childrens Song No. 7
x. Childrens Song No. 3

Corea/Smith* 11.15

v. Bairns Sang Batch 1*

vii. Improvisation 1*
viii. Childrens Song No. 7 cont..

ix. Bairns Sang Batch 2*

xi. Improvisation 2*

xii. Childrens Song No. 3 cont..

- xiv. Improvisation 3*
xv. Childrens Song No. 4 - xvi. Improvisation 4*
xvii. Childrens Song No. 18 - xviii. Bairns Sang Lest*
xiii. Childrens Song No. 17

ommy 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.

odern Jacobite represents

a first foray into symphonic
music for jazz saxophonist
Tommy Smith, a musician,
composer and educator who
has long interleaved orchestral discipline with
creative jazz.
The centrepiece of this striking album is
Jacobite, an evocative symphonic work,
presented here alongside personal reimaginings of music by Rachmaninoff and Chick
Corea. Tommy Smith composed Jacobite as
an ambitious painting in music for saxophone
and orchestra, and he has created a musical
landscape that is deeply imbued with dramatic
tension, extraordinary beauty and inflamed
passion. It is also a musically inventive piece that
is finely balanced as an intricate structure, an
articulate narrative and an exceptionally visceral
piece of original music.
Jacobite takes its inspiration from a traumatic
period in the history of Smiths native Scotland
that began in 1689 with the first impotent
uprisings, and surfaced again in 1715 before
finally ending with the crushing failure of the
1745 revolt. The music does not flinch from the
violence of key moments in that struggle, nor
from the pathos of great loss, and the brooding
bitterness of humiliation in defeat. Jacobite is
therefore a beautifully illustrated symphonic
essay linked by three principal strands of musical
thought into a coherent, evocative and seamless
narrative.

Smith has chosen to preface Jacobite with a

shimmering interpretation of Rachmaninoffs
Vocalise, in which his saxophone emotes a
range of complex feelings in a devastatingly
romantic orchestration. Vocalise is among the
best loved of the composers famous Fourteen
Songs, and Smith brings the subtlest nuances of
improvisation to bear upon its melodic richness.
The third piece on this album is a portmanteau
of compositions ostensibly by Chick Corea,
entitled simply, Childrens Songs. It consists of
Coreas original tunes alternating with Smiths reimaginings of Coreas 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 the making of
this record first began for Tommy Smith in
1989, when he was asked to perform William
Sweeneys concerto for saxophone, An rathad r,
with the BBC/SSO for the television series Jazz
Types, which Smith also presented.

As a Blue Note artist at the time, Smith had

access to the parent company EMIs entire
classical catalogue, and had the pick of CDs
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 another work for
strings and saxophone, Un Ecossais 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.

The piano/saxophone duo recordings with

McLaughlin of these works moved one writer
to observe that they were, Powerful yet lyrical
worksthey offer opportunities for improvisation,
and Smith employs a jazzmans expressive tone
to haunting and thrilling effect. (Inverness
Courier).
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 Smiths Square
at Chelmsford Cathedral, and included strings,
brass, woodwinds, percussion, piano and
saxophone.
Tommy Smith also appeared as solo saxophonist
for Sally Beamishs 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 50-minute re-invention of
Childrens Songs for saxophone and orchestra
with the Scottish Ensemble at St Johns 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 Orchestras 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.
The work was subsequently toured in Scotland,
Estonia, Russia, and Finland.

Then, in January 2015, the window of

opportunity opened with a suggestion from
the BBC/SSO for a remarkable collaboration,
which has now been fulfilled in the musical
energy of 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.

Smith also featured as a soloist with the BBC/

SSO for the 2012 BBC Proms Last Night
Celebrations in Scotland at Glasgows 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 worlds
most celebrated classical music festival.

Keen listeners may detect elements of Scottish

folk melody as one of several points of departure
in this dynamic and highly organized work.
Tommy Smith uses every part of the orchestra to
tell his story, and colours his composition with
delicate touches of improvisation. However, his
overarching aim with Jacobite was to conceive
of something subtle, organic and expressive.
Jacobite is a piece of modern music that
features saxophone and many other soloists
in the orchestra, so its quite unconventional,
explains Smith. Its certainly not a full blown
concerto, especially when the first entrance of
the saxophone appears after two and a half
minutes of orchestral texture and solos from
cello and flute. The saxophone acts as the main
narrator throughout the piece, embodying a
purely improvisational quality that speaks to all
the thematic material.
The outcome is a high watermark in the
accomplished career of one of the Europes
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.

Violin 1

LAURA SAMUEL
KANAKO ITO
CHERYL CROCKETT
PETER CYNFRYN JONES
JANE HAINEY
PETER ISAACS
ALASTAIR SAVAGE
OLIVIER LEMOINE
GENT KOCHO
AMY CARDIGAN
EMILY WARD
MINSI YANG
JANE IEMOINE

Violin 2

LISE AFERIAT
LIZA JOHNSON
ELIZABETH FLACK
JULIA NORTON
ALEX GASCOINE
JANIS WALTON
JULIA CARPENTER
BARBARA DOWNIE
ALICE RICKARDS
BEN NORRIS

Violas

SCOTT DICKINSON
ANDREW BERRIDGE
FIONA ROBERTSON
JACQUI PENFOLD
ALICE BATTY
RIK EVANS
MARY WARD
JENNIFER EDWARDS

Cellos

MARTIN STOREY
ALISON LAWRANCE
SONIA CROMARTY
HAROLD HARRIS
SHARON MOLLOY
GILL DE GROOTE
ANNE BRINCOURT
ROSEMARY TOWNHILL

Double Basses
NICHOLAS BAYLEY
IAIN CRAWFORD
JOHN VAN LIEROP
DEREK HILL
JEREMY WARD
PAUL SPEIRS

Flutes

TOM HANCOX
ROSEMARY LOCK
EWAN ROBERTSON

Oboes

JOE SANDERS
DANIEL FINNEY
JAMES HORAN

Clarinets

YANN GHIRO
BARRY DEACON
SIMON BUTTERWORTH

Bassoons

JULIAN ROBERTS
GRAEME BROWN
PETER WESLEY

Horns

DAVID FLACK
JEREMY BUSHELL
STEPHANIE JONES
JAMIE SHIELD

Trumpets

MARK OKEEFFE
ERIC DUNLEA
ROBERT BAXTER

Trombones

BECKY SMITH
CHRISTOPHER MANSEFIELD

Bass Trombond
ALAN MATHISON

Tuba

ANDREW DUNCAN

Timpapi

GORDON RIGBY

Percussioo

HEATHER CORBETT
DAVID LYONS
ROBERT PURSE

Piano

LYNDA COCHRANE

Harp

HELEN MACLEOD

SCOTT DICKINSON
ANDREW BERRIDGE
FIONA ROBERTSON
JACQUI PENFOLD
ALICE BATTY
RIK EVANS
MARY WARD
JENNIFER EDWARDS

Violas

LISE AFERIAT
LIZA JOHNSON
ELIZABETH FLACK
JULIA NORTON
ALEX GASCOINE
JANIS WALTON
JULIA CARPENTER
BARBARA DOWNIE
ALICE RICKARDS
BEN NORRIS

Violin 2

LAURA SAMUEL
KANAKO ITO
CHERYL CROCKETT
PETER CYNFRYN JONES
JANE HAINEY
PETER ISAACS
ALASTAIR SAVAGE
OLIVIER LEMOINE
GENT KOCHO
AMY CARDIGAN
EMILY WARD
MINSI YANG
JANE IEMOINE

Violin 1

JULIAN ROBERTS
GRAEME BROWN
PETER WESLEY

Bassoons

YANN GHIRO
BARRY DEACON
SIMON BUTTERWORTH

Clarinets

JOE SANDERS
DANIEL FINNEY
JAMES HORAN

Oboes

TOM HANCOX
ROSEMARY LOCK
EWAN ROBERTSON

Flutes

NICHOLAS BAYLEY
IAIN CRAWFORD
JOHN VAN LIEROP
DEREK HILL
JEREMY WARD
PAUL SPEIRS

Double Basses
MARTIN STOREY
ALISON LAWRANCE
SONIA CROMARTY
HAROLD HARRIS
SHARON MOLLOY
GILL DE GROOTE
ANNE BRINCOURT
ROSEMARY TOWNHILL

Cellos

HELEN MACLEOD

Harp

LYNDA COCHRANE

Piano

HEATHER CORBETT
DAVID LYONS
ROBERT PURSE

Percussioo
GORDON RIGBY

Timpapi

ANDREW DUNCAN

Tuba

ALAN MATHISON

Bass Trombond
BECKY SMITH
CHRISTOPHER MANSEFIELD

Trombones
MARK OKEEFFE
ERIC DUNLEA
ROBERT BAXTER

Trumpets

DAVID FLACK
JEREMY BUSHELL
STEPHANIE JONES
JAMIE SHIELD

Horns

Saxophonist - Composer - Orchestrator

CD Desigp & E6ecutivd Producer TOMMY SMITH
Recorded CITY HALLS, GLASGOW 28/29 MAY 2015
Mixed RAINBOW STUDIOS, OSLO 28/29 OCTOBER 2015
Copductor CLARK RUNDELL
Orchestra Maoager GAVIN REID
Senior Producer ANDREW TRINICK
Recordiog Engineer GRAEME TAYLOR
Mixing & Mastering JAN ERIK KONGSHAUG
Photohraphy DEREK CLARK
lioer NoteL MICHAEL CLARK
Tommy Smith is a DAddario Performing Artist and performs exclusively on

Select Jazz Reeds

Timeless bespoke tailoring by Peter Johnston

TOMMY SMITH

THE B B C SCOTTISH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA