Stalwart saxophonist/composer John Harle has reissued on CD a 1987 vinyl offering on the Clarinet Classics label. A noteworthy variety of composers is featured including Phil Woods, Richard Rodney Bennett and Dave Heath giving Harle and pianist John Lenehan a full range of opportunities to explore relatively contemporary material. A refreshing dose of improvisation is included, especially on the Woods piece.
Mr Harle's impressive pedigree is very likely known to many Clarinet & Saxophone magazine readers and one is not let down on this disc. His talents as a composer are plainly evident in his organic methodology in interpreting others' pieces. This attribute comes well to the fore in his poignant reading of the Andante of Bennett's Sonata for soprano saxophone and piano ('In memory of Harold Arlen'). This movement is essentially a composition within a composition, based on Arlen's Once I had a Sweetheart. Harle's lyricism in interpreting this movement does both composers proud while further exhibiting a glint of his own original view of this classic melody. | |
The thunderous and powerful piano elocutions of John Lenehan are finely balanced by his reverence to dynamics and sensitive support underpinning Harle's alto and soprano saxophone. His brief but frequent solo commentaries on Dave Heath's Rumania for soprano saxophone and piano, effectively illustrate his individual voice and command of the necessary range of dynamics for this haunting piece.
The Phil Woods Sonata which opens the selections is of particular interest to me because of its jazz inflections and improvisational sections. Woods, of course, is widely revered as an innovative jazz alto saxophonist and improviser and this piece embodies these attributes with romantic melodies loping gracefully over a rich harmonic scheme. This aspect of the Sonata is rather starkly offset by a free-for-all section in the fourth and final movement (aptly titled Freely). Harle's tone suddenly adapts a gritty, growly posture, which, coupled with his somewhat angular improvised melodicisms aboard Lenehan's pointed articulations struck me as taking the piece a bit too far 'out of the Woods'. Too sudden a departure perhaps from the active but sweetly flowing romantic exercise that comprises most of the work in movements one to three.
Recorded at a church in Bloomsbury this recording boasts a remarkable sound and atmosphere. Rather than too much of an open and swimming echoic quality, the sound has the pointed intimacy of a 100-seat theatre which is highly desired for this kind of recital.
Frank Griffith. |
'John Harle Plays' 