Gavin Bryars, Jess Walker & Ensemble
Release Date: 23 April 2012
Label: GB Records
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 847108056726
Description
The music of Tom Waits in new versions authenticated by Tom himself: "I'm honored to have an artist of Gavin Bryars' stature dress these songs up and take them out to an elegant night on the town." - Tom Waits.
'Mercy and Grand' celebrates the music of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and at the same time it expresses something of the great American and European songwriting traditions from which they spring. The project involved setting some 13 songs by Tom and Kathleen alongside other composers: two pieces by Kurt Weill, some folk music, a John Tams fairground ballad, a tango and a gypsy waltz, performed by a unique seven-piece band with singer Jess Walker.
It is put together by Opera North Projects in arrangements by Gavin Bryars, Jim Holmes and Joe Townsend. Bryars says: "It is not a pastiche of Tom's own band nor does it replicate Tom's inimitable performing style. Our singer, Jess Walker, is classically trained, female and English, and this can help to draw a different kind of attention to the words and the music, especially for those more used to Tom's unique qualities as performer."
"In the song 'Whistle Down The Wind' the words 'Mercy and Grand' refer to a place, a corner where two roads meet on the edge of a town. We too have tried to find meeting places: between musicians and between song-writing traditions, making intuitive connections across a range of styles and musical genres. We focused on particular themes - memory, loss, journeys, the circus - and although there is no specific narrative in the sequence of songs, there is a sense in which the music does take us on a kind of journey."
Tom Waits and Gavin Bryars famously first worked together in 1993 on the hypnotic full-length recorded version of Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.
Personnel: Jess Walker (voice), Joe Townsend (violin, trumpet-violin), Dai Pritchard (tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute), Karen Street (accordion), James Woodrow (electric guitar), Jim Holmes (piano, harmonium, harmonica), Gavin Bryars (double-bass, harmonium), Simon Allen (percussion, including musical saw, waterphone)
Tracklisting
Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars, John Berger & John Christie
Gavin Bryars & Juan Munoz
Gavin Bryars Ensemble
Latvian Radio Choir
Esme Emerson
Jeremy Loops
2nd Grade
Ben Barnes
China Crisis
Mark Farner
The Flamin Groovies
Various Artists
