This is Sir James Galway’s first recording for Sony Classical, capping over 60 CDs he has done in the past as probably the best-known classical flutist in the world today. As he approached his 70th birthday he was considering recording of the Suite for Flute and Piano by Claude Bolling, done many years ago by Jean-Pierre Rampal with Bolling. But he wanted to achieve a more contemporary sound – not just to repeat this mix of the baroque with modern swing, which had been a big crossover hit album.
Then Galway came across the Cuban quartet Tiempo Libre, who are specialists in Latin jazz and Cuban son. He felt that the Afro-Cuban percussion especially would add a new musical dimension. They selected seven sections from two different Bolling suites, filled out the disc with four very similar originals by Tiempo Libre’s pianist and leader Jorge Gomez, and ended with a sort of Jacques Loussier version of the Badinerie from Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2.
The final result is a bouncy, spicy take on Bolling’s classical jazz, with plenty of virtuosity from both Galway and the Cuban musicians. This is not such a big stretch for them, after all, because they all studied at Cuba’s top classical conservatories and only later moved into jazz and pop. Comparison with the Rampal/Bolling originals show the older versions to sound a bit staid and stilted next to these fresh new views of the music.
So what’s with the O’Reilly Street title of the album, you may be asking? Well, a street in Havana is named after an Irish general – O’Reilly – who helped win one of the key battles in the Cuban War of Independence. There are also many other historical Irish/Cuban connections.
TrackList: BOLLING: Fugace, Baroque & Blue, Irlandaise, Veloce, Vagabonde, Affectueuse, Espiele; GOMEZ: General O’Reilly, Tica-Tica, Soncito, Contradanza, BACH-GOMEZ: Badinerie from Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor
– John Sunier
