Tra i vari titoli in uscita in questi giorni per l'iperattiva Discus Music è sicuramente degno di nota Fanfares and Freedom, con protagonista il quartetto di Paul Dunmall (con Liam Noble, Caius Williams e Miles Levin) assieme a un quintetto di fiati guidati da Laura Jurd (con Chris Batchelor, Alex Paxton, Raph Clarkson e Oren Marshall) alle prese con una composizione di Jurd aperta all'improvvisazione e pensata apposta per il sassofonista: "When commissioned to write this music, I was immediately excited and in some ways, joyfully daunted by the challenge. Aware of the dynamic magic of his quartet, it was immediately clear that the only role for Paul in the work was one of complete freedom. The question at that point, was how to make this the work of a ‘composer’ and put my artistic stamp on the whole affair? Whilst there are many composers interested in the blur between the written and the improvised, I wanted to give the listener a satisfyingly coherent sense of when they were listening to improvisation and when they were listening to conventional notation - the written music for the most part, fairly brazen in its stylistic identity. I’ve long been excited by the prospect of composing music for a chamber ensemble of brass players - all at equally home reading notation, improvising freely and in more of a typical jazz context. And there it began - a musical dialogue between the Paul Dunmall Quartet and Brass Quintet, both parties summoning, reacting to, propelling, welcoming, daring and disrupting the other. This was an album I never expected to make, which in itself feels like a celebration of spontaneity and the unexpected."
La registrazione è stata effettuata dal vivo a Londra al Vortex lo scorso ottobre, e la si può ascoltare in anteprima stasera sul web con la possibilità di dialogare in tempo reale con l'autrice e con gli altri ascoltatori e ospiti interessati.