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Simon Deeley

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Soul of the West

From the recording From the Blue Hills

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Soul of the West
by Simon Deeley's Blue Haze Quartet

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Focused in the Studio

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This new album - released 28 March - consists of seven new tracks by composer and pianist Simon Deeley - for biog click /home . The compositions are the result of a creative period for Simon, which came during the first half of 2022.

Listen/Download album - /music

Rather than an over-arching theme the album has a hint of an immediately recognisable style. An infusion of Latin flavour threads through the album; with the Samba groove of 'So, Fly Azure Acrobat', and the gentle, easy, slow Latin of ' Song to the Condor', to the hint of Spanish music in 'On Echoes Andalucia'- both in the solos section and the Bolero like Coda. The other four tracks are examples of two of Simon's other writing styles; blues-infused-jazz-fusion and atmospheric, mood-setting film style. As he says, " I have always been moved by the expressive, lyrical guitar genre; where the guitarist plays an expressive, powerful melody or line against the backing of the rest of the band (heard a lot in electric blues and earlier rock music) and this is the central element of the opening track ' Theme of the Legends' with its strong, lyrical guitar melody". Simon's more cinematic writing style can be heard in 'Midnight Song' and 'Aurora's Dream Waltz', the former with its emotionally charged, yet somewhat restrained late-night mood and the latter creating a dreamy atmosphere depicting, perhaps, a wide-screen scene of a dancer tracing shapes across a moonlit landscape or, of course, across the background of the flued luminescent sky of the Aurora Borealis (The Northern Lights).

THE BAND

The artists that Simon chose to form the quartet to record the album are all frequent and highly respected performers on the Welsh jazz scene. In his words, "I knew that for this album I wanted to have the guitar as the lead instrument in the band and so I signed up the acclaimed and much regarded guitarist James Kilby Chadwick, for many years now a favourite on the Cardiff and South Wales jazz scene. What drew me to James' playing is his individual style and approach. His playing added a compelling artistic style and flavour to the album."

Taking the bass chair for the session was Aidan Thorne. Aidan has a wide career background; to date he has played in bands and group projects ranging from (currently giging and touring with) Burum - fusing Welsh folk music and contemporary jazz - and Khamira - fusing jazz with Indian traditional music - to the classic pop/rock world of the band Explosive Light Orchestra - an ELO tribute - through to work with music theatre company GaggleBabble, and the contemporary fusion sounds of Slowly Rolling Camera and his own regular band Dusky.

Providing the rhythmic centre of the band was drummer Mark O'Connor a highly regarded and much in demand performer on the Welsh jazz scene. He is a member of several of Wales' finest contemporary jazz groups including - Dusky, Burum, Khamira and Paula Gardiner Trio.

Mark has performed internationally including, notably, performing at the Rochester Jazz Festival, USA, and with the band Burum at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Washington DC, and, of course, memorably, a tour of China in a band featuring Tina May, Iain Ballamy, Huw Warren and Paula Gardiner.

He is also a respected teacher being engaged as a visiting tutor at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.