SHINE

Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen: Shine You No More (arr. Parkin); Kate Bush: Jig of Life (arr. Vennart); Barbara Strozzi: Che si può fare? (arr. Vennart); Ruaidhrí Dall Ó Catháin: Tabhair dom do lámh (arr. Becker); C.P.E. Bach: Flute Concerto in A minor, H.431 – I. Allegro assai (arr. Parkin); Sidney Bechet: Petite Fleur (arr. Becker); Barbara Thompson: Tribute to Sidney Bechet; Joni Mitchell: A Case of You (arr. Newell); Corelli: La Folia (arr. Parkin & Poxon) David Bowie: Life on Mars? (arr. Vennart); Jess Gillam, Sam Becker & Leif Kaner-Lidström: Prelude to Hildegard; Hildegard of Bingen: Spiritus sanctus vivificans (arr. Lawson)

Jess Gillam Saxophone

Leif Kaner-Lidström (piano), Sam Wilson (drum), Max Baillie (violin), Ellie Consta (violin), Alistair Vennart (viola), Hadewych van Gent (cello), Sam Becker (doublebass), Freya Goldmark (violin), Roman Lytwyniw (violin), Will Newell (violin), Jack Greed (violin), Ezo Sarici (violin), Emma Purslow (violin), Christine Anderson (viola), Nick Bootiman (viola), Jessie Ann Richardson (cello), Hoda Jahanpour (cello), Toby Hughes (doublebass)

Decca 5778937 https://www.deccaclassics.com/de

In a coruscating new disc, Jess Gillam sparkles with a joie de vivre that lives up to every letter of its title. Shine is less an album than a shaft of sunlight breaking through a rain-streaked window, and it arrives not a moment too soon for those of us facing the long northern winter.

I come to it with a personal pang. A few years ago, as chair of Ripon’s St Cecilia Orchestra, I was eagerly anticipating her appearance with us, only for illness to keep her away on the day. I told myself there would be other chances. This wonderful recording brings that disappointment sharply home, and yet it also goes some considerable way towards making amends.

Her virtuosity fizzes with effervescence, but it is never mere display. Gillam remains as fine an ambassador as the saxophone could hope for, and this disc does exactly what it says on the label: it will make you smile and haul you out of the doldrums. She is refreshingly frank about her aims. “I had one ambition with this project: to make an album that would make people smile,” she says, revealing that she wrote herself a manifesto a year earlier demanding nothing less than “BIG ENERGY”. Mission accomplished, and then some.

The programme casts its beam remarkably wide. At one end glows Hildegard of Bingen, writing in the twelfth century; at the other are the songs of our own day, with jazz standards, Baroque gems and folk melodies scattered like stars in between. Such catholic tastes speak of a childhood steeped in every kind of music, and everything has been chosen to suit both her instrument and her irrepressible rhythmic vivacity.

Feet are tapping from the opening bars, and the journey runs from the folk-tinged exuberance of Kate Bush’s Jig of Life to the poignant reflection of Barbara Strozzi’s Che si può fare. Hildegard’s Spiritus sanctus vivificans vite soars with an almost ecstatic radiance, while Ruaidrí Dall Ó Catháin’s Tabhair dom do Lámh glows like a single candle, the saxophone breathing the old Irish air as softly as a lullaby.

She is surrounded throughout by friends who do far more than provide a backdrop. Pianist Leif Kaner-Lidström, double bassist Sam Becker and percussionist Sam Wilson form a nimble rhythmic engine. Violinists Max Baillie and Ellie Consta, violist Ali Vennart and cellist Hadewych van Gent act like the facets of a well-cut gem, refracting her line into ever richer textures. In the C.P.E. Bach a larger body of strings swells the sound further still.

What impresses most is Gillam’s impeccable control. The first movement of C.P.E. Bach’s sprightly Flute Concerto in A minor lends a contemporary gleam to a composer who straddled the Baroque and early Classical worlds, her articulation crisp as frost on a sunlit morning. Sidney Bechet’s Petite Fleur is gloriously smoochy late-night jazz, the double bass purring beneath her, while Barbara Thompson’s A Tribute to Sidney Bechet struts with all the swagger of a Charleston.

The joy of the sessions is audible in every groove. “Making this album was honestly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had,” Gillam says. “The dedication and skill of the musicians in the room made me feel unbelievably grateful to have picked up a saxophone at the age of seven and for it to have become my life.”

This is a genuinely excellent album, and one that glows long after the final track has faded. I missed Jess Gillam once. I do not intend to make the same mistake twice.