NEW THREEWAY ALBUM DUE OUT
I’m delighted to say that the new Threeway album ‘Songs of the Year’ will be released in the autumn. It is a celebration of the English calendar and climate.
This collection of pieces came into being back in 2003. That year, my Quintet, featuring Steve Waterman, Rod Mason, Stuart McCallum and Dave Walsh, was due to appear at the Marsden Jazz Festival with Steve Lodder as our special guest. I wrote ‘Crystal Morning’, portraying the optimism of an icy, sunlit winter day, and Summer’s End, evoking a sense of melancholy and loss, for the gig and a complete set of compositions, to reflect the different moods of the English seasons, suggested itself. I completed eight pieces and they were well received at the Festival performance. I knew that I wanted to record them and I considered various alternatives, without settling on a particular combination of musicians. Over the next few years, I wrote another four pieces on the same ‘climatic’ theme.
Critical reaction to ‘Conversations’, Threeway’s debut album, was enthusiastic. That reaction, together with the outstanding musicianship and commitment displayed by Lodder and Watermanon every gig, persuaded me that the obvious solution was for Threeway to record ‘Songs of the Year’, now a collection of twelve compositions, particularly as the two ‘Steves’ had been involved in the original performance. Two excellent days in the studio, with a number of first takes, have resulted in a reading of these pieces that has really done them justice.
I’ll keep you posted about further developments.