Postcard From Pushkin

Description

The new recording Postcards from Pushkin is the next phase in the intensely intimate duo collaboration between two of the most widely acclaimed Babel Label recording artists. The 31-year -old Berlin-based, English trumpeter/flugelhornist Tom Arthurs and 35-year-old pianist Richard Fairhurst are highly lauded musicians and composers who have explored the outer limits of the 'jazz' genre in the past decade in often unusual settings. Arthurs in particular is someone who is not only open to inspiration from a wide spectrum of musical spheres, but also from the arts and humanities, be it avant garde European cinema through to philosophy, and even gastronomy. His central interests in music, from Dave Douglas through to György Ligeti, cannot be separated from his broader artistic sensibility.

The new recording makes the point, based as it is around the pair's response to the work of early nineteenth century romantic poet Aleksander Pushkin. Picking up on quotes from the verses of the figure that many regard as Russia's greatest poet, Arthurs and Fairhurst reveal the minimalist grace and romanticism at its heart, but add a twentieth century modernist twist with a Euro-centric approach to improvisation that acknowledges the great pioneers in that field from Kenny Wheeler through to Keith Jarrett. The feeling is of a story being told, but as Arthurs' love of filmmaker Jean Luc Godard would suggest, one of fragmented narratives and musical symbolism. Yet through their abstract yet lyrical dialogue on Postcards, the duo's journey always takes up a clear direction.

Postcards from Pushkin continues the duo's work on the highly rated Mesmer, ("a subtle and beautifully performed dialogue" said The Guardian), their debut on Babel from 2007. It reflects the pair's mutual interest in developing bridges and creating blurs between diverse classical and jazz forms, and between composing and improvising. Both musicians have built up extremely impressive CVs. The Guardian has described Fairhurst as 'one of the UK's most inventive pianists'. It's the F-IRE Collective member Arthurs' 4th and Fairhurst's 7th for Babel, the latter an original Babel recording artist from the early 1990s with the inventive Hungry Ants. Fairhurst, a Steinway International piano artist since 1998, is also a celebrated composer being a BBC Award winner in 2004 for Best New Work - and it was actually while performing this album at the BBC Jazz Awards that year, that he met Arthurs who was depping in Fairhurst's group Nest. Following an intensive period of rehearsal and development performing at Steinway Hall and the Vortex Jazz Club in London, the duo released their debut 'Mesmer'.