Earlier this month, we shared the second of four videos filmed and recorded in the beautiful Welsh Chapel (on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Charing Cross in London) as part of a new project from the James Patrick Gavin Trio. The trio features Adrian Lever (Alma, Horses Brawl), Tim Fairhall (Yasmin Levy, Piano Interrupted) and James Patrick Gavin (TEYR, Jez Hellard & The Djukella Orchestra, Rad Orchestra). This week, we have the third video below which is a live recording of The Dying Light which was written by Tim Fairhall who talks in-depth about the piece below which takes its title from a Dylan Thomas poem.
Tim Fairhall on The Dying Light
I come from a jazz background, but I’ve always been interested in many kinds of music, and I enjoy putting myself in situations where the generic boundaries are unclear, even irrelevant. That feels to be a position of rich possibility, and it’s a great pleasure then to explore what kind of musical language and approach is going to work best to support the sound of the group as a whole. I worked for a long time with Piano Interrupted, a trio with piano and laptop, drawing together elements of electronica, jazz and ambient improv into a post-classical aesthetic; and a current project is Diane McLoughlin’s Casimir Connection, which blends jazz with Eastern European folk and classical. This new trio with James and Adrian again finds inspiration in many different musical sources, and it’s wonderful to work with musicians who are so open, surprising and responsive (and obviously highly skilled). Hopefully, we have taken the variety of interests of the musicians and blended them into a fresh, coherent group sound.
Contemporary folk musicians and jazz musicians have often asked similar questions about what kind of artistic space to occupy in relation to their respective venerable traditions. In each music, there is a strong and valuable conservative element, keen to maintain the integrity of particular approaches and idiomatic boundaries. That has obvious merit from the historical perspective of maintaining a living archive; and more importantly, it preserves the possibility of experiencing the unique expressive potential of very particular kinds of music-making.
Whilst acknowledging the worth of this, in the search for a personally fulfilling musical vocabulary, many of us look to expand upon the received vocabulary of our traditions, and to shape a creative space which allows us to explore a wider range of sounds and influences. It’s interesting to observe certain commonalities of contemporary response to this situation, in both jazz and folk. The possibilities of rhythm, with the use of unusual time signatures and rhythmic groupings, is a key area of interest in both, and in this trio, Adrian’s experience in Balkan music combines with my own love of the rhythmic layering prevalent in contemporary jazz. Also common to both genres is a recognition of texture as a significant creative parameter – James and I both enjoy using extended techniques on our instruments to manipulate and distort our tone for expressive effect.
My writing for this trio utilises some of the compositional resources of modern jazz, in particular with regard to harmonic movement. But I feel it’s important to recognise the context that I’m working within, to respect it, and to take advantage of it – I write differently for violin and guitar than for saxophone and piano, for example. I’m always concerned to create a sound that works for these players, on these instruments, and hopefully allows their musical personality to speak.
The title ‘The Dying of the Light’ comes from a famous Dylan Thomas poem;
‘Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’
However, it’s obvious that that’s not the emotional content of the music! Actually it was unnamed for some time, while I waited for a title to suggest itself which would complement the feeling of the tune. I’m happy that the suggestions of evening falling and of ageing sit well alongside the music.
James takes the piece as an air, with some beautiful improvisation around the melody, while for the most part Adrian and I are playing rubato in support, following his lead for the pacing of the harmony.
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