Seed, described by their publicist as “a dynamic group of musicians pushing the boundaries of contemporary jazz”, are to collaborate with the LSO at the Barbican on 21 November 2024 in a concert called Nature’s Heart.
Seed’s 2019 debut album Driftglass received a “rave review” from the Guardian, was nominated for a Mercury Prize and won an Ivors Academy Award. Its leader, saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, was said by the publication Clash to sit “at the forefront of ground-breaking composition”.
The publicity says the LSO and Seed will play a specially “curated” programme mixing Kinoshi’s original compositions with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and Anna Clyne’s This Midnight Hour.
According to the press release, the concert is “the latest in a long line of boundary-pushing London Jazz Festival collaborations”, a previous one having put a cellist on stage with saxophonists.
No details of the boundaries being pushed or the manner in which they have been or will be pushed by Seed or the collaboration were provided, but it seems likely that the popular division between jazz and classical music – comprehensively and repeatedly demolished since the 1920s – has been reimagined for a new generation.
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In related news, the launch is announced today, under the banner “jazz meets classical”, of pianist Jay D’Amico’s album Melodia. Dee Dee McNeil of Making A Scene says D’Amico and bassist Marlon Martinez “make a perfect duet and continue D’Amico’s legacy of successfully mixing the classical genre with jazz”.
Although he had a primarily classical education, D’Amico had a long and significant association with jazz bassist Milt Hinton. The two met at a Hinton workshop in 1974 and went on to teach together for 18 years. In 1982, D’Amico released his first recording, Envisage, with Hinton on bass and Bob Rosengarden on drums.
Liner-note writer Shawn Woodyard says of the title track of Melodia that it “has the feel of an operatic melody, in this case perhaps a Puccini aria”.
On his website Amico tacitly agrees, saying “My music is somewhat comparable to opera, in that it’s singable, even though my compositions are obviously all instrumental. Jazz starts from the same European harmonic tradition and incorporates African rhythms.”
Amico’s Melodia album includes Coltrane’s Giant Steps, whose harmonic movement in thirds was preceded in numerous classical works, including Ravel’s Ondine from Gaspard De La Nuit (1908).