Classical Jazz recording, I’ll Tell you Later, by Tim Stevens. Reviewer John McBeath
This is a studio recording of an earlier concert entitled Reimagining the Sacred from Melbourne pianist Tim Stevens, an esoteric collection of five pieces, titled ‘movements’, plus an encore.
Stevens is well known as a jazz pianist and expert improviser, playing with many notable jazz artists, winning numerous awards, and also studying to achieve academic music qualifications including a PhD.
Each movement is an individualistic interpretation of ecclesiastical music, influenced by his days as a church choirboy.
The first and second movements are themes and extensive classical extemporisations around firstly Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Kings Lynn, adapted from an English folk song, and then My God I love Thee by Charles Woods.
In the third movement snappy jazz-style improvisations comprise most of John Ireland’s hymn Love Unknown where the original melody appears just for two final choruses.
Stevens says his finale, Wandering The King’s Highway – an unexpected barroom ballad in a classical program – brings ‘a tennis racquet to the cricket match’ – and he plays a straight version of this rollicking tune.
He explains that ‘the record is not particularly jazzy’, and that statement rings true. Apart from just a few sequences in this enigmatically entitled concert, the five movements are ruminations, and thoughtful contemplations such as the combination of two pieces: a lively, yet pastoral interpretation of William Mathias’s The Magnificat, seguing into a stately, meditative version of J S Bach’s St. Anne.
These performances, boldly attributed to both Stevens and the original composer, constitute a highly personal, erudite collection that might appeal to fans of both classical and sacred music.
