Repertoire REPUK 1473

Disc One – Live In Concert

Barbara Thompson (tenor, alto & soprano saxophones, flute and tambourine); Colin Dudman (Yamaha Electric Grand piano, Fender Rhodes, Moog synthesizers); Dill Katz (fretless bass guitar); Jon Hiseman (drums)
Recorded live at the Queen’s Theatre on July 27th & 28th, 1980

Bonus Disc – The Flute Collection

Barbara Thompson (flute) with
Jon Hiseman, Harold Fisher (drums); Dill Katz, Dave Ball, Paul Westwood, Phil Mulford, Andy Pask, Roy Babbington (bass); Bill Worrall, Colin Dudman, Peter Lemer (keyboards); Anthony Oldridge, Rod Dorothy, Billy Thompson (violin); Malcolm MacFarlane, Paul Dunne (guitar); and others

For many, including myself, this is a very special re-issue and captures Barbara Thompson and Paraphernalia at a crucial time in their development. I remember buying this album as a fifteen year old shortly after it was released, and immediately fell in love with the music. I had heard Paraphernalia’s debut album courtesy of a friend and after acquiring Live in Concert on double LP added the group’s second album Wilde Tales to my collection.

Sadly, over the years pre-recorded cassettes have been worn out or snapped and LPs lost only to fall victim to the deletions axe and be difficult to replace. I have recently been able to purchase vinyl copies of Paraphernalia’s first two albums and Barbara Thompson’s Jubiaba, but until now this live set has alluded me.

Listening again to the music I was transported back to my teenage years, but the music I heard was not that of nostalgia, but reminded me of just how vital a force Barbara was, and how the music has stood the test of time.

The album was the third of six recordings made for MCA, and this is the first time it has been made available on CD and on streaming platforms having been prepared for reproduction on high quality CD-Rs from original and unplayed albums by Jon Hiseman for owners of the original album.

Now released by Repertoire on close to what would have been Barbara’s 80th birthday the music is once again available to be heard by Paraphernalia fans old and new, and catches the band at a fascinating time in their development, and that of Thompson as an instrumentalist and composer.

This was Paraphernalia’s first live recording, and as such allows the soloists to stretch out far more than on the studio recordings. It also represents the last of the quartet recordings too, as feeling the quartet had gone as far as it could, Barbara introduced a fifth voice to the band with the addition of violinist Anthony Aldridge who would be succeeded by Rod Dorothy and Billy Thompson given the music a whole new tonal palette for Thompon to write for.

For these performances at Queen’s Theatre in London, four concerts were played over two consecutive days and the album compiled from these with some of the tracks being skilfully spliced together if one solo was preferred over another. Edited by Jon Hiseman to such a high degree and with his impeccable time keeping over the four concerts, it is impossible to detect where the edits are.

The music is just as I remember it from all those years ago, and indeed listening again I can recall the solos as if I’d only listened to them yesterday. The concert opens with ‘Summer Madness’ featuring Barbara on flute and Colin Dudman on piano, but it the group as whole that stand out and deliver that knockout punch.

And it comes again in the next number, ‘Frilly Bolero’ that begins as a feature for Dill Katz’s bass guitar yet builds up in tension and features a powerful solo from Thompson on alto before leading with the band hurtling along in 11/8 time. Barbara’s classical leanings come into play on ‘From Nowhere’ that was written when working with the Hanover Radio Symphony Orchestra. Pared down to quartet it features a delightful piano and flute introduction before opening before the tenor is heard developing the theme further and the tempo and mood picking up as the saxophonist becomes more expansive in her solo.

While Paraphernalia always described themselves as a jazz rock group, Thompson’s genre hopping nature made the band so much more. The ballad ‘Litte Annie-Ooh’ was dedicated to Barbara and Jon’s daughter is one of those tender and lyrical pieces that could reduce an audience to tears while Colin Dudman’s ‘Scrummage’ took the music to a freer area that allowed for total spontaneity and some fine solos. Barbara herself, again on alto, plays a blinder from lyrical beginnings to a headlong flight of fancy.

It is also good to find that Hiseman’s drum feature is kept intact. On the original release the track by Peter Lemer titled ‘Aliyah’ took up side four of the albums but was actually played to close the set after ‘Little Annie-Ooh’, and is used on this CD reissue to close the disc. Hiseman’s solo is so much more than a display of technique, and as with all good drum solos has a logic and flow to it that bears repeated listening.

The band also played two encores at the enthusiastic request of the audience, the first a blues and the second, with Barbara ever mindful of the current music climate, with a firm disco feel. ‘Blues for Adolphe Sax’ is Barbara’s dedication to the Belgian inventor of the saxophone, and is a feature for Thompson’s feat of playing two saxophones simultaneously, while the closing ‘Sunset’ once again features Barbara’s distinctive alto sound with its upper register cries swooping down to the bell notes.

As if this wonderful concert was not enough, the album comes with a second bonus disc, The Flute Collection, featuring ten tracks from seven different albums all handpicked by Barbara prior to her death in 2022.

Covering a twenty year span from 1978 to 1998 there is a wealth of material that not only demonstrate her versatility and virtuosity as a flautist, but also in the different contexts in which she placed the instrument. From the energetic ‘Fields of Flowers’ with Barbara playing against her own repeat echo, to the lavish orchestration of ‘Tibetan Sunrise’ with brass and string quartet from the Heavenly Bodies album released in 1986.

‘Bad Blues’ is just that with distorted guitar and keyboards with Barbara dirtying her tone along with the use of overblowing and vocalised effects, all in stark contrast to the beautiful melodies and playing on the discs closing ‘La Tranquillité D’Ame’ from Paraphernalia’ debut album in 1978 and ‘Elysian Fields’ (again from Heavenly Bodies) in 1986. With her diagnosis of Parkinsons Disease in 1997, Babara noticed difficulties in playing the flute and the dexterity in her fingers needed to play intricate passages. Sadly, she had to give up the flute a year or so later, and it therefore it is most welcome to have this compilation curated by Barbara.

For those that wish to purchase a copy of Live In Concert (80th Birthday Edition) is Barbara’s website (click here for more details and to purchase), and for a limited time there is the option to receive a copy of the DVD, Barbara Thompson’s Paraphernalia Live ’05.

To further whet the appetite, you can read a review of the DVD below which was written by our late colleague Euan Dixon for Jazz Views a few years ago.

BARBARA THOMPSON’S PARAPHENALIA – Live ‘05
Temple Music DVD, TMDVD0611

Barbara Thompson – soprano, alto, tenor saxes and recorder; Peter Lemer- keyboards; Billy Thompson-violin; Dave Ball – bass guitar; John Hiseman – drums with brass and sax sections on two tracks.
Recorded and filmed at The Theaterhaus, Stuttgart, 2005
 
In spite of inauspicious circumstances, among them inadequate time allowed for a sound check and a worsening of Barbara Thompson’s medical condition, this DVD captures her and Paraphernalia in excellent form in a session taken from their `Never Say Goodbye` tour in 2005. Some of this footage was used in a subsequent BBC documentary, `Playing Against Time` which tells of her on-going struggle with Parkinson’s disease but here we have two full sets of music plus encores expertly photographed with imaginative camera angles providing the viewer with a `best seat in the house` concert experience.

The playlist is made up entirely of Barbara Thompson’s compositions with one exception, an idiosyncratic version of Benny Golson’s hard-bop classic `Are You Real`, and are executed with all the energy and precision demanded by her highly mobile brand of jazz rock with its world and folk music allusions. The pace never falters, driven along by Hiseman’s magisterial presence on drums and Dave Ball’s plangent bass lines, and even when it slows to take in a blues like `Smokey Embrace` it still smoulders with menace. Add to this volatile sound stage the highly variegated colourations and multi-phonic cries of Billy Thompson’s violin underpinned by the space-age harmonies of Lemer’s keyboards and you have a musical concoction of considerable potency that commands your unwavering attention from start to finish. Plenty of solo space is provided for each of the instrumentalists and each prove more than equal to the task of matching Ms Thompson’s inventiveness on her various instruments. Additional variety is provided in the form of an overdubbed brass section which appears on two of the numbers in split screen format as do some of the ensemble sections for the core band.

It must take considerable stamina to perform music of this type given the duration of the pieces not to mention a quick and penetrating intelligence in maintaining the interplay of musical ideas between the various instruments whilst negotiating the twists and turns of her convoluted themes and to be able to carry this off whilst suffering the effects of a debilitating illness speaks highly of Barbara’s determination and courage. No-one without prior knowledge of her condition would be able to detect any of this from the performance shown here.