This album features instrumental ‘Indie-Jazz’ arrangements of Ivor Cutler’s songs taken from his cult albums ‘Velvet Donkey’, ‘Jammy Smears’, and ‘Dandruff’. These are complemented with some new compositions inspired by Cutler’s semi-biographical account of postwar Glasgwegian youth, “Glasgow Dreamer”. Wilfully idiosyncratic, sometimes whimsical melodies, are cherished and sculpted into wonderful creations by Bryden’s lyrical tenor sax and a high-octane Quartet featuring Reinier Baas (guitar), Mark Schilders (drums) and Tom Berkmann (bass).

 

Ben Bryden on making "Glasgow Dreamer: The Music of Ivor Cutler":

 

"I've been a fan of Ivor Cutler since I was a teenager and have listened to his records so much that I memorised many of his poems and songs through sheer osmosis. The result of this as a modern jazz saxophonist  and composer is that I would find many of Ivor's melodies would come through subconsciously in my playing and composing. Ivor Cutler's melodies are beautifully simple and ceaselessly memorable, and they fit perfectly with my own compositions and style. I didn't start this project with the intention of making an album, initially I had just one tune that dovetailed well with my own works. But as I found myself arranging more and more Cutler melodies I realised I had enough material to form a project in it's own right.

 

"Fascinatingly, I came across this quote from Ivor himself, which is from the liner notes of the CD reissue of 'An Elpee and Two Epees':

 

'I would go to a jazz concert and just let the music come through me and write nonsense poems, so that one was listening to the noise of the words rather than the meaning...I wouldn't allow my intellect to get in the way. After six years I found certain songs more to my taste than others and I gradually began to use actual words'

 

"So, I like to think that my interpretations have, in a sense, brought Ivor Cutler's songs full circle - they began as melodies inspired by live jazz and now form a live jazz set of their own!"

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the BAND!

Reinier Baas - guitar, is from Amsterdam and leads his band ‘The More Socially Relevant Jazz Music Ensemble’ which has toured globally and is arguably the Netherlands' hottest young jazz act. He has released three records under his own name, most recently the ominously titled 'Smooth Jazz Apocalypse' 

 

Tom Berkman - bass, hails from Bavaria and has been based in New York for the last few years, recently graduating from Manhattan School of Music. He was a semifinalist in the Jazz Competition of the International Double Bass Convention “Bass 2010″ in Berlin and is a German Academy Award winning film scorer.

Mark Schilders is the drummer in Reinier Baas' ‘The More Socially Relevant Jazz Music Ensemble’, but is an esteemed bandleader in his own right having been selected as ‘Nieuwe Maker’ by the Dutch Performing Arts Fund in collaboration with Stichting Jazz International Rotterdam.