Jon Lord - Bouree
Following his live 1974 release "Windows", Jon Lord decided that his next album should benefit from the production and engineering facilities available in a studio. He put together a small band of whom only Pete York had played on the previous album, the most notable of the newcomers (from a fame perspective at least) being Andy Summers, later of the Police, on guitar. An orchestra is once again deployed; this time we have the Philharmonica Hungarica Orchestra conducted by Eberhard Schoener. To understand the motivation behind "Sarabande", we need go no further than Jon's own words: "(it is) that of a baroque dance suite; a form of music which was brought to its highest level by Bach. The title of each track is the name of a dance used in one of those dance suites and I have tried to use the same tempo and feel as an original Sarabande, Gigue etc." The music is therefore written by Lord himself, but he makes his inspiration clear. Ask a music expert though and they will tell you that Lord's lofty pretensions are at times suspect, the "Fantasia" and "finale" here having little to do with baroque, while several recognised baroque dances are overlooked. The "Fantasia" is actually just that, a fanfare to introduce the album; it quickly leads into the 7 minute title piece. "Sarabande" signals that this will be no "Windows" part 2, the composition and performance both being much tighter. The synthesiser sounds explored by Lord may seem prosaic now, but at the time they would <b>...</b>
