Tenacity

2020 brings revered British composer, pianist and educator Django Bates' 60th birthday and his 40th year as a performing musician, and it also marks the 100th anniversary of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker's birth. So what better way to celebrate than with the release of studio album Tenacity, fresh from the Arctic Circle, featuring The Norrbotten big band and Django's piano trio, Belovèd. This 53 minute ten-track album features four new Parker orchestrations, plus Laura, a film noir favourite of Parker's, and an expressionistic reworking of Star Eyes. Alongside these are four Bates' originals which push the possibilities of the big band to new levels of virtuosity. In the spirit of George Martin, a full range of studio techniques were employed to create a progressive new big band sound. The album artwork is stunningly surreal. Featuring Nick White's photographic work, the cover shot took a year to compose and fine-tune. In a download world, a physical album needs to be really special in both its presentation and its recording quality to fully engage the listener. That is Tenacity!