To be released just three days before the crucial Scottish independence referendum, talk about timing, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra explore the enduring historic hurt of Culloden felt in Scotland since 1746 as the theme of this new setting of Bobby Wellins’ ‘Culloden Moor Suite.’
Wellins, a much loved Scottish jazz saxophone icon since appearing on Stan Tracey’s Under Milk Wood, composed this five-part suite in 1961, four years before Tracey’s great work, inspired by reading an account of the bloody battle that took place to the east of Inverness. Wellins in 1961 found himself in pre-Beatles London recording with the likes of Gordon Beck, Tony Crombie, and Harold McNair on Crombie’s record Whole Lotta Tony.
Fast forward mere decades and recorded much more recently in May 2013 this latest SNJO album follows American Adventure released earlier this year. Perhaps my sense of heightened expectation by the concept was too strong to be fully rewarded, yet the album, arranged over “five acts”, begins incredibly well, Wellins emotive and understated, the SNJO deftly orchestrated by German arranger Florian Ross moving into a Gil Evans space by the end of ‘Gathering’. The following sections, ‘March’, like something Art Blakey might have powered in on at the beginning; the engrossingly tense ‘Battle’; tender ‘Aftermath’, with its pristine liquidy piano accompaniment early on lapping up around fragile Coltranian saxophone providing a unique atmosphere; and ultimately ‘Epilogue’ with a quietude to it the orchestra restrained for a time before moving to a brassy peak. Making peace – it’s as if to say – as challenging as waging war. Stephen Graham