Tim Garland - Weather Walker

The Guardian 80

(Edition)

There’s nothing quite like Tim Garland’s music, with its three strands of jazz, classical and folk woven in ever-changing and surprising patterns. In this case, we have a string orchestra of up to 35 players, some superb jazz soloists, notably Garland himself, and traditional song from north-west England.

The music is an evocation of the Lake District in its various seasons and moods. There’s a certain resistance, even now, to the mixing of strings and jazz, but the richness and variety of these 12 pieces should banish such prejudice: bassist Yuri Goloubev soloing to an ethereal background of two violins; the earthy sound of Garland’s tenor saxophone declaiming the haunting melody of The Snows They Melt the Soonest; the boldly expansive playing of both pianists, Jason Rebello and Pablo Held.