Alison Balsom: Paris (CD review)

Alison Balsom, trumpet; various guest artists; Guy Barker and Timothy Redmond, The Guy Barker Orchestra. Warner Classics 0825646327898.

By now almost everyone knows Alison Balsom; in the past decade or so she has become probably the most well-known and well-liked concert trumpeter in the world. In case you don't know her, the British trumpet soloist has been playing trumpet professionally since 2001; she is a multiple award winner with a slew of albums to her credit; she was the former principal trumpet of the London Chamber Orchestra; and she's a Visiting Professor of Trumpet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. More important, she is a darn fine trumpet player. I read a while back that she credits legendary jazz great Dizzy Gillespie as her inspiration, so if you hear any signs of casual, easy, improvisational, modern-jazz inflections in her playing, well, you know where they probably came from.

Most of Ms. Balsom's recordings have been theme albums, and this one is no different. She writes of it, "The concept of this album has been a long time coming. I'm constantly looking for different ways to demonstrate the many voices of the trumpet, and to prove that we don't need to define our musical tastes by genre. So about two years ago, I decided that it was time to explore a different style for this next project. I was initially inspired by Gil Evans and his masterful reworking of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez into the iconic Sketches of Spain for Miles Davis. I wondered if we could follow this bold concept of moving through the classical world and then beyond, with new orchestrations and unique colours."

Thus, we find Ms. Balsom performing twelve arrangements for trumpet and orchestra (or trumpet and guitar) by eight French, Argentinean, Hungarian, and Romani composers, all of the pieces flirting with the idea of Paris at their center. Accompanying Ms. Balsom on various items are several other well-known performers: guitarists Milos Karadaglic and Al Cherry and pianist Grant Windsor and on almost all the tracks by the Guy Barker Orchestra under the director of either Guy Barker or Timothy Redmond.

The selections include Erik Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1 and Gnossienne No. 3; Astor Piazzolla's Cafe 1930 and Oblivion; Michel Legrand's La Valse des Lilas; Olivier Messiaen's Le Baiser de l'Enfant Jesus; Maurice Ravel's Piece en forme de Habanera and Piano Concerto in G major (Adagio assai); Joseph Kosma's Autumn Leaves; and Django Reinhardt's Nuages.

I was not sure at first that the Satie pieces would work out too well with a solo trumpet and a seventy-or-so piece orchestra instead of a piano, but, in fact, Ms. Balsom's trumpet sound is deliciously sinuous and evocative, smooth and strong, the performer caressing each note and coaxing sweet nuances from the music. It's surprising how delicate, how gossamer-like, Ms. Balsom can make her trumpet react to her touch.

It's like that throughout the program. In Piazolla's Cafe 1930, for example, Milos accompanies Ms. Balsom, and the guitar-trumpet pairing proves a winning combination, nicely capturing the dusky jazz-dance inflections of the score. Almost all of the selections on the program involve slightly melancholy jazz and blues-inflected music, and Ms. Balsom appears well attuned to the idiom.

And so it goes. Among my favorites: Besides the Satie, I enjoyed the two Ravel pieces, especially the delightful Adagio, lovingly presented by Ms. Balsom and company with a good deal of obvious affection. The concluding Nuages also touched me and brought the program to a satisfying close.

Drawbacks? Not many. Certainly not the performances, which are sterling. However, I would point out a minor issue: namely, that the disc's fifty-two-minute run time is more in line with a pop album than a classical album, the latter usually filling out a CD's seventy-nine-minute potential a little better.

Producers Alison Balsom and Guy Barker and engineer and mixer Steve Price recorded the album at Angel Studios, London in May 2014. The sound is warm and round, with a mild hall resonance to help it along. The trumpet is rich, mellow, and luxuriant, nicely balanced with the orchestra. The orchestral support does not appear terribly well detailed but is lush and complementary. It's all a bit dreamy, actually, with great swaths of sound in as comfortable a setting as possible. It isn't an audiophile album, then, but more like one for quiet, romantic nights by the fire.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here: