Marius Neset & London Sinfonietta - Viaduct (CD)

Release Date: 09/22/23Gripping orchestral score with jazz core: A dramatically varied and visionary cross genre journeyOn 'Viaduct' tenor/soprano saxophonist-composer Marius Neset organically integrates a wide-ranging, colourful kaleidoscope of influences with his compelling compositions/arrangements for a pair of extended suites. Originally commissioned for the opening concert of the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in 2018, Viaduct offered Neset a fantastic opportunity to reunite his regular top-notch Brit-Scandi jazz quintet with world-class 19-piece London Sinfonietta.Viaduct Part one explodes with a scintillating fireworks display of twentieth-century art music and spiky jazz rhythms: bursts of Stravinsky-like motor rhythms interlace with Leonard Bernstein-esque urban symphonic jazz faintly echoing West Side Story. Later passages exude the romantic aspects and calmness of Neset's Nordic sensibilities filtered through his intuitive symphonic writing skillset. 'The way the piece is shaped,'